A Picture Perfect Holiday
This movie here, as far as I know, has enlightened me on something that I don't think has been addressed in any Christmas movie... ever. Reindeer Food. Our hero Sean (Henderson Wade) was explaining his Christmas traditions to our heroine Gaby (Tatyana Ali), and one of these was that he and his sister used to leave Reindeer food out for the reindeer as opposed to cookies and milk for Santa. Because, and I might be paraphrasing here, but he said "Why does Santa's fat ass need to eat more for? The Reindeer are doing all the work." That makes all the sense in the world to me.
Anyway, Gaby is a NYC freelance fashion photographer and when we meet her she is taking pictures of shirtless dudes wearing Santa hats. We are told she is shooting an ad for the jeans this shirtless dude is wearing, but of the proofs of Gaby's shots that I saw, all I observed was a shirtless dude in a Santa hat and not one image of said jeans. She doesn't seem to very good at her job. But her mentor and former professor and semi-boss Laila (Dina Meyer) loves her work. Gaby loves to hear it because it turns out that this realities version of Style Magazine is hiring a permanent staff photographer and since Laila is in good with the Editor in Chief, maybe she can put in a good word and get her this plum gig. Well, while Laila loves Gaby's shirtless dude work, her pictures lack the heart and warmth that is necessary from a staff photographer. Sorry girlfriend. Not one to give up that easily, Gaby asks what can she do to convince Laila she has this warmth thing she's looking for. Laila informs Gaby of a Rocky Mountain photographer's retreat which just may give her the warmth training she needs. Internally, Gaby thinks that's dumb, but she really wants this gig so off she goes!
Problems abound on day one of Gabby's Rocky Mountain arrival, for as she enters her cabin rental she is surprised by a shirtless dude in a towel. This, of course, is Sean who came downstairs after showering to see what all that noise was. Logically he should've put on some clothes, but then another opportunity to see Harrison Wade shirtless was not to happen again in this movie, so we had to get it in there somehow.
Mistakes were made during the booking process, and the lodging in this town is all booked up so these two will be forced to share the Cabin. Obviously they don't get along. Sean, a wildlife photographer who is simply here for fun, shoots on film, as opposed to Gaby who is only here to further her career, is a digital girl. Sean LOVES Christmas, decorates the cabin and has a different set of Christmas PJ's for every day of the week. Gaby not so much. Sean loves breakfast. Gaby not so much. Sean is a hot cocoa connoisseur, Gaby only drinks black coffee. Is love gonna even happen for these two? Of course it is silly.
During the retreat mixer Gaby runs into Amelia (Rivkah Reyes) and her girlfriend Dani (Paula Andrea Placido) and these two kids are madly in love and both have confided to Sean and Gaby separately that they plan to propose during the retreat. This leads to both Gaby and Sean to constantly look at the love. Plus with all of the retreat missions that their teacher sends them on together, the ice between these two is starting to melt. They even swap cameras, which in photography speak is like letting somebody wear your letter jacket. Gaby has a newfound love of hot chocolate and reindeer food, Sean is getting the hang of this digital thing, but alas the retreat is coming to an end. Then the SNOWSTORM hits! This is important, because narratively Sean and Gaby are snowed in and have to spend a couple more days together, but more importantly we FINALLY get to build a snowman and have a snowball fight. Finally! I don't know if the snow machine budget got approved or they just went somewhere where snow actually existed, but we finally got to see a snowball fight. So much fun these two had that it looks it's time to kiss... OH NO! The phone rings.
It's Laila, she loves Gaby's new work, she talked to the editor, the job is hers, she just has to make it back to NYC to attend this editor's Christmas gala to seal the deal. But doggone it, they're snowed in and the roads are closed. I guess this job wasn't meant to be, but at least now Gaby and Sean can kiss for real now. Maybe more for all I know. I mean you do have these two hyper attractive people, strongly attracted to each other, snowed in while sharing a cozy cabin so nature's should nurture nature, but I guess this isn't that kind of movie.
Morning comes, the roads have cleared up and if Gaby hurries it up she can catch the red eye and catch that plane. Yes, she likes Sean but this is her dream job. And Sean really likes Gaby but he too has a job to get to. Amelia proposes to Dani so somebody's love came through at least. Actually, once the retreat instructor saw Sean's pictures of Gaby during the retreat photo showcase, he noticed that Sean captured that almost impossible thing to catch through the lens... love. He did that. But Gaby's not here. Unless Sean turns his head to the left, and there she is! Screw that job she's always wanted and worked her whole adult life to achieve! Love is the only employment we need. Time to walk out onto the Holiday lights veranda and make out. At Christmas.
When you watch enough of these types of movies, and I've seen my share, of course we get very familiar the myriad of actresses who occupy these roles, but one also gets familiar with the plug and play actors who are opposite our heroines. The David Alpay's, Mark Taylor's, Luke McFarlane's and Ryan Peavy's of the genre are all fine foils for the adult former child star heroines that overwhelmingly populate these movies, but this cat Henderson Wade with his natural, easy going charm and the other necessary things that gets men cast in these movies could be the best of the lot. I'm pretty sure Mr. Wade has grander designs for his career than to be trapped in Romantic Movie purgatory, but homeboy is really good at this.
Regardless of all of that, what we have with A Picture Perfect Holiday is an effective, very typical, paint by numbers, Romantic Holiday movie. Which at this point in the game is a good thing. Once you start painting outside the numbers with these movies we get uncomfortable and confused and we don't like that. The vomit worthy elements were better than most we've seen this year so far as we did have lot's of cocoa drinking, no cookie baking per se, but we did have reindeer food baking which I think is an adequate substitute. Lot's of Christmas trees and tree decorating, a Christmas Averse career minded heroine paired with a Christmas obsessed psycho, a little Christmas caroling, a near-miss kiss, canned Christmas music in the background along with some modern original Christmas songs which we never like. Most importantly, of course, we had a snow fight and a snowman. In one of the comments for some other movie I prattled on about, I was mercilessly attacked for not recognizing that most places don't experience white Christmases. Heck, I live in the state of Georgia so I'm fully aware of this, but when I watch my watch my Christmas movies I want to see snow! I'm not going apologize for that. I'm also originally from Michigan so I am very familiar with snow. I do not want to be in snow. But I do want to look at snow.
We didn't get any wise old people in this movie but we did get wise young lesbians so I gets that is something. And there were no orphan kids in this movie. There was some random kid looking at a goat, but I think she had a parent. Oh well.
Also, if you're going to put Dina Meyer in your movie you should probably have her do more. She was basically Bruce Willising it in this movie, sitting in a chair and staying out of the way. She didn't seem bored out of her mind like Mr. Willis in his throwaway movies, but Ms. Meyer can do so much more.
Paint by numbers, exactly what we expected, and that's not a bad thing. Four Vomits!
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