All Saints Christmas
Our film opens with Lisette, played by real life Grammy Award winning artist Ledesi, giving a concert while the folks in the audience are having literal convulsions listening to her song. It's not really that good people, but she does have a nice voice. After the concert, Lisette gets some bad news from her distractingly handsome manager Zack (Darien Martin) that her label is on the verge of dropping her for the a younger, shinier though far less talented new model. But back to Zack, if actor Darien Martin can halfway remember his lines he should have a pretty decent Hallmark / Lifetime career in front of him for the next few years. Or until he stops being good looking.
Across town, this town being Los Angeles I think, we meet Matthew as played by the legendary Roger Cross who is some kind of music producer, but a music purist. You know, listens to vinyl and stuff. Doesn't believe in Autotune. Worships at the alter of Coltrane. One of those dudes. At a local Christmas bizarre, Matthew runs into Lisette, and it turns out these two were a couple for two years not too long ago, but sadly it didn't end well. Ah but circumstance, and Matthew's bad back leads to him being forced on bended to knee to hand Lisette a ring she had dropped, somebody snapped a pic of this and now the word is out on the socials that Lisette is engaged. About Matthew's bad back, in the Canadian TV show I watch, Coroner, the character Roger Cross plays has a bad back in that too, which has me thinking Roger Cross has a bad back in real life and they just write it in the script so they don't have to reshoot anything anytime his back goes out.
The simple solution to this is to tell everyone it was a mistake, but now Lisette's social numbers are blowing up so she convinces Matthew to go along with the ruse, which is further complicated by the fact Lisette has to head back down to her home of New Orleans, to celebrate the closing of the family jazz club, which requires her to lie to them about her and Matthew's fake engagement. Hijinks shall ensue.
Well not really. What's actually going to happen is that Lisette is going to show Matthew around what I guess could be New Orleans? I don't know because I've never been there, but I've seen enough Canadian TV shows to recognize the entire cast is Canadian, except for Ledisi who is actually from New Orleans so maybe my Canadian brothers and sisters actually loaded up the van and shot a few scenes in Louisiana? I can't tell you one way or the other.
Regardless of all of that, the typical things happen, Matthew and Lisette spend a lot of time with each other, the love is being adequately rekindled, everybody loves Matthew including Lisette's doubting father (Peter Bryant) and the fake love is quickly turning to real love. Back in the day, when Matthew and Lisette were together, Lisette never bothered to introduce the man to her family which bothered Matthew to no end, so he just ended it since she clearly wasn't taking this relationship seriously. Two years is an awful long time to hide your boyfriend from your family so we can't really blame him for this, but Lisette, who is really kind of the worst, doesn't see it that way. Apparently some boyfriend Lisette had back in the 60's or whenever broker her heart and thus to minimize future heartbreak she doesn't introduce current romantic liaisons to the family. If that makes any sense.
But just when things were looking great for Matthew and Lisette, including a near miss kiss, which again seems unnecessary considering these these two rather mature individuals dated for two years so I assume they've kissed before, and so much more, but the love is derailed. The reasons behind this are too silly to get into but just know that Lisette is mad, the ruse is up, and love is derailed. Until someone tells Lisette that she doesn't need to be all mad all the time and now love is back on track, with Matthew getting on bended knee yet again, because I assume Roger Cross's back went out so they just left it in the script, and proposing. And then it magically snows. In New Orleans. At Christmas.
So while 'All Saints Christmas' might not the best movie around, it is a Christmas movie that understands what kind of movie it is supposed to be. It is a warm weather Christmas movie, which I am completely opposed to in my Romantic Hallmarky holiday movies, but they found a way to make it snow in New Orleans and you can't beat that. Where's my Cookie baking! Oh, Lisette's sister got up at midnight to bake Christmas cookies because she had a craving because she's pregnant and wasn't quite ready to reveal it to the family. Way to weave that bit of melodrama into some cookie baking team. Did we go Christmas Tree shopping, no we did not, because Lisette's dad grabbed an axe and started chopping down Christmas trees like goddamn boss. Hell yeah. Caroling of course, cocoa drinking, near miss kissing, third act breakups, they found a way to squeeze all that in. The only things missing were snowball fights and making a snowman, which you really can't do in New Orleans and random Orphan children because you know I love me some orphan kids.
So if you want to watch a virtual who's who of Black Canadian actors pretending to be from New Orleans Louisiana, thank goodness no one tried to pull off an accent, All Saints Christmas was a fairly high vomit worthy experience.
Comments
Post a Comment