Christmas Incorporated
I'm guessing my Excel algorithm decided the last few movies she chose for me were too complicated? I guess? So to fix that she picked out the most basic-ass Hallmark Holiday movie I've ever seen. I mean this is some basic stuff right here. This shouldn't take long.
Riley (Shenae Grimes-Beech) is a small town girl in the big city trying to find her next gig, but unfortunately she either went to the wrong school, has too much experience, not enough experience, or the company refuses to hire the unemployed. That's what that B told her. Last time is a charm though as she lands at the Young Toy Company and impresses Amanda (Jane Moffat), the Administrative Assistant to the company's new Christmas Hating CEO William (Steve Lund), who is taking over the company from his freshly dead father. She hires her on the spot to be Williams personal assistant. Slight issue, she was reading off the resume of somebody with a similar name, that was not her. No big deal, she'll just let them know of their mistake later. No way that's going circle back around in this basic-ass movie.
First order of business is a trip to Tiny Town to shut down the under performing Toy Factory! Riley flies in early to get things ready for William, meets the glorious people of Tiny Town, in particular Piper (Hanna Spear). This movie may be basic, but Piper is spectacular. This lady put the H in Hustle. We meet her as she is manning the front desk at the hotel, Riley hires her to be their driver and tour guide, though I think you can walk everywhere in this town, she is also the Maître D' at the town restaurant, I believe she works a couple shifts at the toy factory and she is also your go to gal for meth and oxy. Man, I love this girl!
The town wants to put their best foot forward for William, who they welcome by throwing him in jail for speeding on his motorcycle with no license, which is what exactly should happen. Good thing for William All Lives Matter. Then he sees the Christmas decorations Riley put up in the rented house... did we mention William the Toy CEO hates Christmas? Then he has to deal with the Christmas loving yokels of this town, which includes his factory workers who all dress up as freaking elves, so things aren't great for William right now. Fortunately for him not everybody is trying to impress him, such as Katie the local reporter (Rebecca Neston) who plans on using William's destruction as a launching point for a job at the Times. That's her plan.
How are we going to melt Williams, cold, cold heart? Two things... Riley's incessant joyfulness and Santa Claus. Yep, magical Santa is floating around, appearing out of thin air and scaring the shit out of people to give them sage advice. Riley is coming up with the good ideas, she's funny, cute, and Williams is smitten. He even made dinner for Riley one night, which Piper the hustler, at her psychiatry stand pop-up informs us that this means he loves her. I mean everything is going great between these two kids who even had a Christmas tree decorating battle. But alas, that evil reporter has done her research! She knows Riley isn't who she says she is and drops the bomb! I don't know if blowing the cover of a personal assistant to a CEO of a flailing toy company is going to get her that Times gig, but good luck with that.
Well William feels betrayed. Riley knows she done wrong and just leaves with her head hung low. Thing is everybody around William can see how he feels about her. I can't, but everyone else can. Her identity might've been false, but her heart was true. Well William follows his heart, and totally disregards common sense and asks that Identity stealing scalawag to please come back to work for him, but not as an assistant, but as a partner in the business, because that makes sense. Next thing you know these two are saving the factory, delivering toys to dying orphan kids, and then they start making out. At Christmas.
So there's nothing wrong with a basic-ass Christmas movie, but that's what this is. Maybe way back in the olden days of 2015, Hallmark was just perfecting the formula and not trying to rock the boat too much. Mind you they aren't rocking the boat in 2022 either, but they do tend color slightly outside the lines a little more than this movie was willing to. Cute enthusiastic small town girl, Blandsome Christmas hating guy, ebullient town folk fighting to keep the (insert here) factory open, love blooms, love dies, love resurfaces and all is good. The only thing missing was a bestie of color, but I guess that was a staple a few years away.
Naturally, since this movie was basic Hallmark there plenty of vomit worthy elements to choose from as we had caroling, tree decorating, lots of cocoa drinking... or was it mocha espresso drinking? Either way, they were sipping Christmassy drinks. We had lots of snow, lots of sage old people including mystical Santa, dying orphan kids, cookie baking in the form of Riley's mom who was baking cookies every time she called home, though I don't know who is going to eat all those cookies, William had not two but THREE dead parents since his real mom died in childbirth and his granny who served as defacto mom died on him as well. But despite all the snow we didn't get any snowball fights or snowman making, and I don't think we got a near miss kiss either. They looked at each other a lot, but this does not count so we have to ding it a couple of vomits for these oversights.
So yeah, this movie shouldn't disappoint fans of the genre, I mean how could it? It's basic. Hallmarky 101.
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