Christmas on Holly Lane
Christmas on Holly Lane (2018) - UPTV
Little Cat and Riley are trimming the tree and hanging up stockings at the house of their best friend Sarah. And thank heaven for Sarah. Cat's parents are dead and and she's basically getting the Cinderella treatment from the cousins who took her in, minus the charming prince, and Riley's parents are abusive drunks. Thus Sarah has taken it upon herself, along with her stable family, to give these girls the Christmas they deserve now and forever.
Fast forward a few decades where our little girls are all grown up and life hasn't been... well... great, but they are reuniting this Christmas at Sarah's old house on Holly Lane. Sarah (Sarah Lancaster), a children's book writer, is the mother of a kind of nice twelve year old girl, but her husband Ethan (Giles Panton) has recently walked out on her, and considering he's knocked up the woman he was having an affair with, it doesn't look like he's coming back. Cat (Gina Holden), an LA based chef, is the mother of a rather awful twelve year old girl, but then her husband and the girls father died in a car accident some years back so I guess we understand the kids bad behavior a bit. Death seems to follow poor Cat wherever she goes. And Riley (Karen Holness) is a soulless Wall Street corporate raider who neither has, nor wants a man because she equates all relationships to her drunken and abusive parents. Welcome to Holly Lane and Merry Christmas Y'all!
So while life is pretty much kicking the three lovelies in the rear right now, they will always have each other's back through the thick and the thin. The friends are helping Sarah deal with the impending end of her marriage, and they are also helping Cat save her career and her daughters soul by opening a restaurant and moving back home to wholesome Smalltownville, as opposed to the evil Los Angeles which is absolutely ruining her daughter. Riley sprains her ankle trying to hang lights on a snowy roof. Normally that's a bad thing but this introduces her to Dr. Jake (Jaime Callica), or re-introduces her since they did go to high school together. Thing is Riley doesn't remember Jake even a little bit, but Jake remembers Holly quite vividly, regaling her with the story of how a debate speech she gave in high school about the importance of giving back to the community changed and shaped his life. She didn't mean any of that by the way. And kudos to actor Jaime Callica who just weeks ago we saw in one of these holiday movies as Blandsome Canadian Actor No. 2, but in this one he is Blandsome Canadian Actor No. 1! That's called moving on up where I come from. Anyway, romance is kind of in the air for these two kids.
While that's pretty much it for the movie, to be honest with you, but there are still things that have happen. The restaurant needs to open before Christmas, The ladies have to convince the relationship averse Riley that Jake is the man for her, Sarah's marriage can't be saved but her husband's relationship with his daughter will need saving, And Cat's terrible child will need to stop being terrible. All that's gonna happen. And if there's any time left, Cat and Sarah need to find a man too. At Christmas.
Dare I say that this little ditty from UPTV, Christmas on Holly Lane, might be one of the better Hallmarky holiday movies I've seen? And I'll tell you why. This would be because more times than not, the characters in this movie actually felt like real people dealing with real stuff, and more times than not, the conversations they had felt like conversations that actually would come out of the mouths of real people. When Sarah had a conversation on the severe shortcomings of her soon-to-be ex-husband, that conversation sounded authentic and had some power behind it. Then when Riley had a conversation with Cat's disrespectful daughter to explain their lives to her, while we do understand it was inserted mostly for exposition, it was still a well written, well acted scene, and then there were quite a few authentic dialog moments in this movie. For the most part... because there were some groan worthy, forced elements we had to wade through as well, but this is to be expected.
But don't worry, they didn't sacrifice the necessary elements needed to make a TV holiday movie valid as there was plenty of cookie baking, tree trimming, stocking hanging, and cocoa sipping but because of the character driven nature of this movie other things were sacrificed such as snowball fighting, mistletoe hanging, caroling and near miss kissing... mainly because Dr. Jake moved in fast and quick and refused to be denied. Not that this stopped them from eventually breaking up, before getting back together as dictated by the Hallmarky bible, Verse 2 Chapter 1.
And this would lead into a bit of a problem I had with this otherwise very tolerable holiday movie. You see, they very easily could've gotten by with Riley's story being the one centered on the romance, while the other two ladies dealt with their own issues. Sarah and her failed marriage, Cat and her damaged relationship with her daughter. They really didn't need to wedge in boyfriends for these other two women, but wedge them in they did. I get it, these holiday movies are ultimately about our female lead finding a man, but we had three female leads in this movie and one had a story arc which involved finding a man. I think the audience would've been good with that, but what do I know.
Still, all that being said, very tolerable UPTV, not too bad at all.
Fast forward a few decades where our little girls are all grown up and life hasn't been... well... great, but they are reuniting this Christmas at Sarah's old house on Holly Lane. Sarah (Sarah Lancaster), a children's book writer, is the mother of a kind of nice twelve year old girl, but her husband Ethan (Giles Panton) has recently walked out on her, and considering he's knocked up the woman he was having an affair with, it doesn't look like he's coming back. Cat (Gina Holden), an LA based chef, is the mother of a rather awful twelve year old girl, but then her husband and the girls father died in a car accident some years back so I guess we understand the kids bad behavior a bit. Death seems to follow poor Cat wherever she goes. And Riley (Karen Holness) is a soulless Wall Street corporate raider who neither has, nor wants a man because she equates all relationships to her drunken and abusive parents. Welcome to Holly Lane and Merry Christmas Y'all!
So while life is pretty much kicking the three lovelies in the rear right now, they will always have each other's back through the thick and the thin. The friends are helping Sarah deal with the impending end of her marriage, and they are also helping Cat save her career and her daughters soul by opening a restaurant and moving back home to wholesome Smalltownville, as opposed to the evil Los Angeles which is absolutely ruining her daughter. Riley sprains her ankle trying to hang lights on a snowy roof. Normally that's a bad thing but this introduces her to Dr. Jake (Jaime Callica), or re-introduces her since they did go to high school together. Thing is Riley doesn't remember Jake even a little bit, but Jake remembers Holly quite vividly, regaling her with the story of how a debate speech she gave in high school about the importance of giving back to the community changed and shaped his life. She didn't mean any of that by the way. And kudos to actor Jaime Callica who just weeks ago we saw in one of these holiday movies as Blandsome Canadian Actor No. 2, but in this one he is Blandsome Canadian Actor No. 1! That's called moving on up where I come from. Anyway, romance is kind of in the air for these two kids.
While that's pretty much it for the movie, to be honest with you, but there are still things that have happen. The restaurant needs to open before Christmas, The ladies have to convince the relationship averse Riley that Jake is the man for her, Sarah's marriage can't be saved but her husband's relationship with his daughter will need saving, And Cat's terrible child will need to stop being terrible. All that's gonna happen. And if there's any time left, Cat and Sarah need to find a man too. At Christmas.
Dare I say that this little ditty from UPTV, Christmas on Holly Lane, might be one of the better Hallmarky holiday movies I've seen? And I'll tell you why. This would be because more times than not, the characters in this movie actually felt like real people dealing with real stuff, and more times than not, the conversations they had felt like conversations that actually would come out of the mouths of real people. When Sarah had a conversation on the severe shortcomings of her soon-to-be ex-husband, that conversation sounded authentic and had some power behind it. Then when Riley had a conversation with Cat's disrespectful daughter to explain their lives to her, while we do understand it was inserted mostly for exposition, it was still a well written, well acted scene, and then there were quite a few authentic dialog moments in this movie. For the most part... because there were some groan worthy, forced elements we had to wade through as well, but this is to be expected.
But don't worry, they didn't sacrifice the necessary elements needed to make a TV holiday movie valid as there was plenty of cookie baking, tree trimming, stocking hanging, and cocoa sipping but because of the character driven nature of this movie other things were sacrificed such as snowball fighting, mistletoe hanging, caroling and near miss kissing... mainly because Dr. Jake moved in fast and quick and refused to be denied. Not that this stopped them from eventually breaking up, before getting back together as dictated by the Hallmarky bible, Verse 2 Chapter 1.
And this would lead into a bit of a problem I had with this otherwise very tolerable holiday movie. You see, they very easily could've gotten by with Riley's story being the one centered on the romance, while the other two ladies dealt with their own issues. Sarah and her failed marriage, Cat and her damaged relationship with her daughter. They really didn't need to wedge in boyfriends for these other two women, but wedge them in they did. I get it, these holiday movies are ultimately about our female lead finding a man, but we had three female leads in this movie and one had a story arc which involved finding a man. I think the audience would've been good with that, but what do I know.
Still, all that being said, very tolerable UPTV, not too bad at all.
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