Christmas at the Plaza
Like I said before, if an actor is on my show Agents of Shield, or Blindspot even, and then shows up in a cable Romantic Christmas movie, there's a good chance I might watch said romantic Christmas movie. Today we have Agent Gemma Simmons, as played by the very lovely and very British Elizabeth Henstridge in Christmas at the Plaza. Now I am slightly curious why they didn't just allow Ms. Henstridge to speak in her natural Britishy voice in this movie, not that there was anything particularly wrong with her American accent, other than I couldn't quite place what American region that she and her linguistics coach were shooting for... it certainly wasn't northeastern where this movie takes place... but if she stays British, and when her bestie asks if she's going to see her mom for Christmas, she could've simply said 'it's a long trip and I got this sweet Plaza gig, I'll see her after the holidays', as opposed to 'mom is going on a cruise' which kind of makes her mom, who we never meet, an asshole. that's all I'm saying.
Anyway, meet Dr. Jessica Cooper, a PhD in historical forensics or something who has been hired by the Plaza Hotel in NYC to archive something having something to do with this Christmas presentation they are having in a couple of weeks. While entering the Plaza, Jessica gets a call from her boyfriend Dennis (DavidLaFonataine). Dennis is NOT that dude in that picture up there, so Dennis... you will NOT have a woman by the end of this movie. This much we know. Sorry son.
While heading off to do some hardcore archiving, Jessica makes the acquaintance of Nick (Ryan Paevey) the professional Christmas decorator who is decorating the Plaza. These kids do not hit it off. Worst still, Plaza manager Ms. Clark (Julia Duffy) forces these two to work together which ratchets up the tension even higher. Then in one of Nick's personal moments he gets a surprise call from his ex girlfriend who wants to see him and see his work on the Plaza. Nick wants nothing to do with her. I think we all know this woman serves only one purpose in the movie, and that is to pop up out of nowhere, right when our stressed couple starts finding the love, and put Nick in a somewhat compromising, albeit completely innocent position, and thereby delaying the love. That's only purpose she serves. She does it well.
Also along for this ride is Jessica's best friend Cassidy, as played by professional romantic Christmas Movie best friend Karen Holeness, and more importantly Reginald the Bellman, played by the great Bruce Davidson, who will be dispensing all kinds of Old People wisdom, plot forwarding knowledge and key plot resolutions while hauling heavy suitcases, which this cat is far too old to be doing.
So Nick and Jessica spend time together, the relationship grows, Jessica's relationship with her doomed boyfriend starts to sour, Jessica meets the family and learns that the ex broke Nick's heart because she wasn't keen on marrying a dude who decorates Christmas trees for a living. Which, to me, seems like a completely valid reason of vetting a potential mate. Now with Jessica's boyfriend mercifully out of the picture, love looks like it's going to happen, until it is slightly derailed as mentioned earlier, until it is put right back on track. At Christmas.
Christmas at the Plaza is a slightly different type of Hallmark Christmas movie in that it manages to be super Chistmassy, while also almost being a regular movie. Sort of. I mean this movie has all the trappings of a holiday movie with a legitimate Christmas based plot involving a missing Christmas ornament, Christmas is literally everywhere considering our hero decorates Christmas for a living, which is a seasonal gig at best, and the producers even ponied up the loot for some honest to goodness legit Christmas Classics sung by Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin. You can't beat that with a stick.
What makes a little different is that we have a heroine who does not forsake everything she's worked for to be with a man at the end... I mean she's with the man at the end, but she's actually maintains her career. And considering what this man does for a living, she's going to need that job. It takes place in a big city as opposed to a small, out of the way snowy small town, it wasn't completely predictable, only 95% predictable, it was in possession of an actual workable plot and Bruce Davidson was in this movie.
There are a couple of things missing from the tried and true Hallmark Romantic Holiday movie, which may or may not affect your enjoyment of this feature, such as snowball fights, intense cookie baking, though we did have some light cookie baking, hardcore cocoa drinking and the movie was almost completely devoid of cute kids. It did have some bad Christmas Karaoke which I wouldn't mind seeing as a new standard addition in these things.
All of this is to say that Christmas at the Plaza wasn't all that bad a movie. Maybe a little light on the formula that Hallmark pretty much invented, which does affect it's vomit worthiness, but ultimately not a bad romantic movie at all.
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