One Starry Christmas
Ladies, here's a scenario for you to consider. Suppose you're taking the Greyhound from Chicago to New York. Not the Megabus, because their trips are non-stop, but a Greyhound, which tends to stop at every podunk town in-between. You get on the bus, nobody's sitting next to you, you nod off. When you wake up, there's a dude sitting next to you because he got on during one of the many stops. But hey, he's a nice dude, good looking, you two are having some nice conversation and you tell him you're heading to NYC to visit your parents and surprise your boyfriend, it's all good. But then the bus breaks downs. Dangit. Chances are you might make it home by Christmas. But then that nice dude you met drives up in car he just rented and tells you to jump on in! He'll take you the rest of way. Ladies... do you get into this car with a guy you just met an hour ago on a bus? If you paused for even a split second, let me assure the answer is 'no'. Hell No. But Holly (Sarah Carter), who is like the fortieth character I've seen in one of these things named Holly, jumped in this strangers car. If this were any other movie on any other channel, There would be blood stains in the backseat of this car he allegedly rented and Holly's skin would be turned into a quilt that this man would be wearing. But instead Holly and Luke the Cowboy (Damon Runyan) are gonna fall in love.
I did mention Holly had a boyfriend, right? Yeah. As we well know, if a woman has a boyfriend at the beginning of one of these movies, that man ain't gonna have no woman at the end of this movie. Thing is, Holly's boyfriend Adam (Paul Popowich) isn't that so bad. For instance he bought Holly, who loves Christmas, a tree. It's a white, artificial tree, but he was thinking about her. Also he is heading to NYC right before Christmas to close a big deal, which doesn't make Holly happy, but this deal will set the pair up for the future real nice like. The problem for Holly, a freshly minted Astronomy PhD, is that she has built a life in Chicago and will be starting a new job at the Local U and doesn't want to move to NYC. Adam points out they have Astronomy jobs in NYC, but whatever, the pair will worry about that when the time comes.
Then the scenario happens that we describe on the bus where Luke doesn't murder Holly and instead drops her off at her parents front door. She also invites him in for dinner to meet the folks. The least she could do for his kindness. Note that her parents aren't too crazy about Adam, for no reason in particular, but they love them some Luke. Adam also comes over to greet his girlfriend upon her arrival, and imagine his unpleasant surprise at the company she's currently keeping. No worries though... just friends. Classic last words.
So the next day while Adam is out trying to close a deal that will set him and his future bride up sweet, his girl is out showing Luke the town. Walks in the park, horseback riding, ice skating.... the works. The parents even tell Luke to bring his brother Bull (George Canyon) to Christmas dinner who is also in New York as the Cowboy brothers are in NYC for a rodeo. Adam's not comfortable with any of this, nor should he be, especially when he takes his lady to a swanky Christmas party to meet his new clients because he totally closed that deal. Now here's where I pull Adam to the side and talk to him, man to man. Brother... that dude is clearly taking your woman from you. Do something about it. He does. What does he get for his efforts? Dumped. She assures him it's not about Luke. Folks, the Devil is a lie. It's ALL about Luke. If it wasn't about Luke, when the cowboy rode up to her house on horseback, telling some tale about Wild Bill, Ursa Major and Josephine, she wouldn't have jumped on the back of that horse with Luke and rode away. Hell if I know where they're going, on horseback, at midnight, in New York City... but off they go.
Is One Starry Night a good movie. Of course not. Is it a good Hallmarky Romantic movie? No, I don't think so. The main error this movie made in my humble opinion, is the same problem I had with Sleepless in Seattle decades ago in that the Bill Pullman character didn't deserve to get dumped. He was an okay guy. Either make him a jerk, or leave him out completely. Adam might not have been a gold star boyfriend, but he was an okay guy. Sure, in real life a person shouldn't settle with someone who isn't doing it for them, no matter how nice they are, but this ain't real life, this is a dumb romantic Holiday movie, so either make Adam a jerk or leave him out completely. Adam got dumped mainly because he's a foot shorter and less hot than the cowboy with the Crispin Glover haircut. I know this because the same problems that Holly was whining about in regards to Adam are going to be ten fold with the traveling cowboy. Is he going to move to Chicago with Holly? I don't think so because he's a traveling cowboy. He and Bull need to go where the rodeo go. Did you think about that Holly? And you should see that nice apartment Holly has in Chicago. Adam is clearly footing the bill on that joint, so she's getting put out of there so I don't where she's going to live. On-Campus dorms? I don't think the cowboy is going to like that either. This leaves Holly abandoning everything, which she said she didn't want to do, and moving to Texas to be with a man who is never going to be home because he's a traveling cowboy. Gotta play the long game Holly, gotta play the long game.
If the movie had spent more time on cookie baking and snowball fights and snowman building and mistletoe hanging and Christmas Tree shopping and Christmas Tree decorating and cute orphan kids and Christmas caroling... I wouldn't have had time to contemplate all this peripheral nonsense, but it didn't have any of that! Instead I got an impromptu line dance, Bull pulling out the acoustic and singing a four minute song and two large cowboys shaking each other, while talking about true love and Wild Bill which had me fearing one of them was going to say 'I wish I knew how to quit you', but thankfully that did not happen.
We understand the limitations of the genre and we embrace the limitations of the genre, but every so often we run across one of these that I'm not sure even people who swear by the genre are going to like.
Comments
Post a Comment