Three Days

Three Days (2001) - ABC Family

When did the Hallmarky Holiday Romance movie begin?  Like in earnest?  I honestly don’t know, but I’m thinking this throwback from almost 20 years ago from ABC family feels like it could be a precursor of what was to come.

Beth (Kristin Davis) is just wonderful.  She looks great, she dresses great, she’s fit, her Boston flat is spotless… of course this could be because Beth has no children and no discernable employment and thus she should have plenty of time to keep herself looking great, but there you go.  The reason Beth doesn’t have to work is because she’s married to Andrew (Reed Diamond), a slick, hardworking literary agent who is making moves and stacking dollars.  The downside of this is that he doesn’t pay his wife of many years too much attention anymore, and this neglect is only going to get worse this Christmas as Andrew jets off on a business trip to Chicago just before the holidays to sign a client, much to Beth’s sadness.

What Andrew fails to mention about this business trip is that his hot, and very thirsty assistant Kimberly (Danielle Brett) is coming along.  In fact after they take care of their day business in Chicago, the two meet back in Andrew’s hotel room that night and it looks like it’s Infidelity Time!  I like how Kimberly climbed in Andrew’s hotel bed still dressed in her business clothes because you know, this is a family movie.  But before he could join her, Andrew sees a cute note his wife left him and Infidelity Time is off.  That didn’t stop Kimberly from answering his hotel phone, a call from his wife, which as you might imagine doesn’t go over very well when Andrew makes it back home.

In fact, it goes over so terribly that when Andrew does get home, Beth blows up, runs out of the house in anger, then gets hit by a car and dies.  Now Andrew is sad and guilt ridden and his life is over.  NOT SO FAST!!!  Later that tragic night Andrew meets a very popular plot device during this time period known in literary circles as ‘The Magical Negro’.   Today, he is the angel Lionel and is played by Tim Meadows, and if someone wants to update that Wiki link to Magical Negroes in Cinema, Lionel has been conspicuously left off of it.  Anyway, Lionel lays it down for Andrew very simply.  He has three days, prior to the accident, to spend with Beth, to show her how much he loves her.  Mind you, this doesn’t change Beth’s fate, she still going to die, it is destined to happen, but at least Andrew has time to make things right before she goes.

Andrew accepts the deal, not the fate part of course because he’s gonna change that if he can, but now he’s going shower Beth with love.  The next morning Beth is alive and well and Andrew showers her with love.  Beth thinks something is wrong.  Andrew takes Beth back to their old hometown, to shower her with more love, but also so she won’t die on a filthy Boston street on Christmas Eve.  Now Beth knows something is wrong.  Still, Andrew tries desperately to show Beth how he feels about her, with Lionel constantly popping up to point out he’s doing it wrong and Beth becoming more wary.  We have to admit Andrew is kind of terrible at this.  At dinner Beth mentions how wonderful it would be if they could have a child.  Andrew tells her now isn’t the right time, which apparently he’s been saying for years.  Homeboy, she’s going to die in a couple days.  Just say yes.  If she says ‘I want to build an orphanage on the moon’, just say yes.  This guy!

Eventually though, things start to get much better between the two, partly due to Andrew dealing with his anger towards his deadbeat dad (Cedric Smith), but alas something happens, in true Romantic Christmas movie style, which tears the couple apart and sends Beth back to Boston angrier than ever.  Andrew makes it back to Boston in time to try to stop the inevitable, but there’s nothing he can do, destiny has been written, the angels are waiting for Beth’s arrival on the other side. I mean like for real.  Unless Andrew does the one thing…  at Christmas.

Released in the fall of 2001, which some of you may remember was a tough year, we have a perfectly competent Romantic Holiday Movie to help soothe a damaged America.  Obviously over the next few years these movies will be refined to follow a very strict formula, but this one didn’t too badly in following a formula that had yet to be officially formalized. 

We had Christmas Tree Shopping, caroling, Christmas tree decorating, Hot Cocoa drinking, lots of snow, ice skating and magic.  I think the kids were having a snowball fight and while they didn’t make a snowman they DID make a snow cave which immediately collapsed on a kid and temporarily killed the kid.  Nice.  There were no ugly Christmas sweaters that I can recall, probably because it was 2001 and ugly Christmas sweater was just ugly, and since our couple have been married for 20 years there’s no need for a near miss kiss.  In fact they were straight making out on city streets for all to see, on numerous occasions. 

Yes Andrew was a terrible husband and was hard to get behind and Beth did whine an awful lot considering her life is pretty cake.  I’m not saying she should tolerate her man cheating on her, but maybe give the guy the benefit of the doubt every once in a while.  Still, Kristen Davis brings her special brand of universal joyfulness which helps to override Reed Diamond’s universal asshole character the poor man’s been stuck playing for most of his career.  And while we have mad love for my main man Tim Meadows, as far as magical negroes go, he’s no Don Cheadle.  Now THAT’S a Magical Negro!  And before someone wants to attack me, I am Black and somewhat Magical, so it's all good because I have inside knowledge on these kind of things.

But considering the time frame, ‘Three Days’ does a lot of things right, before we knew there was a right way to even do these things.