Window Wonderland
Today the Randomizer picked Window Wonderland, and I have to be honest with you my friends, this one took me a few days to get through. Fifteen minutes one day, twenty minutes the next, until I finally finished it off. Let me be clear in letting you that there's absolutely nothing wrong with this movie, in fact it may be one of the better types of these movies that you may get the chance to see. Possibly because it's almost a regular movie and less a Hallmark Holiday Romantic movie. No, the problem is all internal. You see when I start out watching these movies early in the season, I'm gung ho, ret ta go! But after a while, day in and day out of watching these Hallmarky Holiday movies, they start to eat into your soul. Make you question your very existence. But enough about existential crises', On with the Show!
Sloan (Chyler Leigh) is a hard working, uptight NYC Window Designer in this Universe's version of Macy's and since the head designer has stepped down, Sloan has her eye on the top Window Designer gig. Her main comp is Jake (Paul Campbell), a quick witted, smart aleck of a man who takes nothing serious but does have artistic talent to burn. Their persnickity boss Mr. Fitch (Matty Finochio) has opened up the competition to the both of them with whomever has the window (two front windows) that brings in the most customers, gets the job. I don't think that's quantifiable, but whatever.
All that to the side, Sloane does have a blue blood boyfriend in Kenneth (Cameron Mathison) who does not understand why his woman has to work all the time and why she won't go to Aspen with him and participate in the other rich people things he wants to do. Not that it matters because we ALL know he ain't gonna have no woman when this movie is over. Thing is Sloane only pretends to be rich as her mom Rita (The late great Naomi Judd) is the bathroom attendant at this Macy's and while Sloane does love her mother to death, she does seem a little ashamed of her. Jake has no family in NYC, just a country boy trying to make it in the big city. His only friend is Old Man Mac the Window Washer (Terence Kelly) with whom he does the crossword puzzles with every morning.
So Jake and Sloane go about the business of Hepburning and Tracying their way through this movie, taking friendly and not so friendly jabs at each other while decorating their windows, when Sloane learns Jake's secret! Turns out homeless Jake is living at the Macy's, in the bedroom department. Unfortunately when she confronts him with her knowledge of this info, the alarm sets and they are trapped in the store until morning. This gives them some time to really get to know each other and gives exposition a chance to grow.
Ah but there's still a window competition to get through, but Jake sees how important this job is to Sloane, as his feelings for her are starting to grow, so he decides to tank his Christmas Eve window. Also blue blood Kenneth has learned about his girlfriends working class roots and he's none too happy about this. Other stuff happens like the both of them making crap windows, getting fired by Mr. Fitch, breaking into Macy's to make great windows and subsequently getting arrested, but the important thing is that Kenneth has decided to forgive Sloane for being so common, which clearly doesn't go over well and he loses his woman, as we all know he would. Also the owner of this Macy's shows up to let the cops know that Sloane and Jake are cool, and would you know that it's Mac the Window Washer! What? Who is totally kicking it with Sloane's mom! Who's the new blue blood now sir!
Anyway, Sloane and Jake's latest window is super awesome, features themselves in it, the both of them wrapped in loves embrace, they BOTH get the top Window decorating gig, not sure how that's going to work, and they start making out in the window for everybody to see. Which is wildly inappropriate. On Christmas.
So yeah, 'Window Wonderland' is a pretty okay movie, probably because it's a traditional RomCom, not a traditional Hallmarky Romance movie. You may have noticed at no point did I mention anybody baking cookies, or caroling, making snowmen or throwing snowballs, or avoiding a magical Santa, or near miss kissing, or mistletoe, or even drinking hot cocoa. Nothing! What we do have is Paul Campbell in the first of what will be many appearances in these types of movies brining the charm, and Chyler Leigh in the last of these she will do, as she will move on to other things, brining us the uptight, asymmetrical haircut beauty. Both actors do this thing they do very well. And this movie has Naomi Judd in it. She didn't sing for us, a Christmas song would've been nice, but Miss Naomi should've done more acting because she was a natural.
Admittedly, not much of a Hallmark Holiday movie, thus the low vomit rating, but not so bad for a regular movie.
Comments
Post a Comment