An Ice Wine Christmas
After watching these things for a few years, I think I’ve
figured out a subtle difference between the TV-G rated Hallmark produced
Romantic Christmas movies and the TV-PG rated Lifetime produced Romantic
Christmas movies. Where the Hallmark
protagonists are kind of coy with how they approach their relationships, the
Lifetime protagonists make their intentions pretty clear from the word go. In a Hallmark movie the guy will say ‘Let’s
hang Christmas ornaments!’ In a Lifetime
movie the guy will say ‘Let me help you hang that ornament girl’. Just something I observed is all.
Camilla (Roselyn Sanchez) is a primo sommelier in one
of the top restaurants in Philly, and her boss has just offered her the job of
Queen Sommelier over his entire chain of upscale restaurants. A dream opportunity for Camilla for sure, but
sorry homeboy, she won’t be able to take that gig because she’s going to be madly
in love with some dude in a couple of hours, but you keep hope alive.
Camilla is heading back home for Christmas to her
small town of Evergreen in upstate New York, which I think could be the same
Evergreen from that series of Hallmark Christmas movies, but just takes place
on the south side of town. She will take time during her stay home to contemplate her boss's offer as it would make
her super busy and limit her to spend time in Evergreen with the fam. Once out the cab she sees this odd dude
pacing the street apparently looking for something and freezing in the process
because he has no winter coat. This
would be Declan (Lyriq Bent) and Declan didn’t pack a coat for his trip to
upstate New York in late December because Declan is dumb.
So there a lot of things going on right now in this
movie with most of it having to do with Ice Wine and the Christmas festival
which Camilla is planning. Henry
(Richard Fitzpatrick) owns the winery that makes the wine, and he has the magical wine sense that knows just the right temps that the berries need to be picked to make the
best possible wine, but he’s retiring soon.
Camilla’s sister Beth (AnnaMaria Demara) runs the daily operations of
the winery and doesn’t have Henry’s magic wine sensing gene and needs
help. That’s where Declan comes in because
he’s a scientist and can predict weather trends and tell with exacting precision
when the berries will need to be picked. Well,
Camilla don’t like no dang science and only believes in magic so those two are
not going to get along.
Actually they get along GREAT! Declan was on the Camilla train the first
time he laid eyes on this woman and Camilla is receptive to whatever game homeboy
threw in her general direction. Declan,
as it turns out, isn’t a big Christmas guy as his parents are world travelers
and always are at some different destination for the Holidays, but Camilla, who
is all things Christmas, is going to rectify all of that nonsense. These two go through the process of doing
everything together that two people can do including a wine taste test where
Declan blindfolded Camilla to see if she could tell the difference between
authentic Ice wine and mass produced ice wine.
About this, I don’t think the blindfold was actually necessary, seems a
little sketch to me, but cool. Also, I
think Camilla could’ve put the blindfold on herself but then there’s no
blindfold application sexy time.
Finally, you should see this blindfold.
Does Declan just keep red satin blindfolds in his pocket? Color me concerned. Anyway, love looks like a strong possibility between
these two, everybody in town assumes they have already closed this deal,
Camilla’s mom (Maria Del Mar) has already married them off but we know love
doesn’t work that way in these movies, don’t we?
Camilla overhears her sister, Henry and Declan talking
about making major changes to the winery which really upsets Camilla that she
wasn’t consulted on this. Plus Declan got
the frost date wrong which pretty much ruins everything. Nobody is more upset about this than Declan
who thinks he did a crap job possibly because he was ‘distracted’ (which he was). This makes Camilla even madder and she tells
Declan she overheard them making plans to change the winery. Declan explains what she ‘overheard’ had
nothing to do with the winery and now he’s mad because she basically called him
a liar and questioned his honor. Now we
have two mad hot people on our hands, love is derailed, Camilla is taking the
sommelier gig and Declan is jumping on the next plane to Paris to spend
Christmas with his folks.
Or not, because Declan truly isn’t jumping off this train
anytime soon as these two are still hanging out doing stuff. Plus Camilla has seen the signs. She's tasted the dirt! It's complicated. She KNOWS when the frost is coming now. Christmas Day! Just like she always hoped and dreamed! Camilla totally has the Ice Wine Sensing Gene! Camilla
is totally psycho about Ice wine by the way and the harvest is saved! Henry has decided to give his winery to Beth,
Camilla and Declan, being that the three of them together can do what he has done all by
himself for the last fifty years, that dude in the beginning has totally lost
his sommelier, and Declan’s parents have pretty much lost their son. Those two are making out right now on the
bell tower. I mean they are really going
at it. It’s making me uncomfortable… At
Christmas.
So An Ice Wine Christmas is a fairly standard Holiday
Romantic movie as we have a Christmas averse hero transformed by a Christmas
positive heroine, enhanced by the hint of magic, cocoa and cookies, a near miss
kiss, a soft breakup ending with a snowcapped make out session on the bell
tower. Pretty standard stuff. What I think might elevate this one a little
bit above the others is that our couple does a pretty good job of pretending to
be actually into each other. I do believe a lot
of this can attributed to the lovely, spicy Roselyn Sanchez who I think could
generate pretty decent chemistry acting along side a giant rock. Not to take
anything away from Lyriq Bent who is plenty handsome and charming, in addition
to being fine actor, but if you did put a six foot rock next Roselyn Sanchez
you’d be like ‘Yeah, I can see that working.
Totally’.
However, while this movie was filled with the ‘spirit’
of Christmas, it was somewhat lacking in the vomit worthy tropes we expect to see in
these movies. There was cookie baking,
but it was minimal. There was a little hot cocoa
drinking but it was drowned out by lots of wine drinking. There was some Christmas tree decorating and
we did have a festival to prepare for, but there was no caroling… the impromptu ‘We
Wish you a Merry Christmas’ doesn’t count, and we STILL haven’t seen a snowball
fight or snowman yet this season. Damn
you Climate Change! Also, children don’t
exist in this universe, much less orphan kids.
They tried to do other things like ornament painting and other stuff I
didn’t understand like Christmas song slow dancing, but it was different and we don’t like change.
Still, Ms. Roselyn and Mr. Lyriq made this one kind of
above average.
Two Vomits!
And here goes a picture of Maria Del Mar, who is trapped in this movie playing Roselyn Sanchez's freaking mom, even though she's only a few older than Ms. Sanchez. We still see you Miss Maria!
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