A Christmas Together With You
Frank (Harry Lennix) is rummaging through his garage trying to get some Christmas lights, but he's old and clumsy and knocks down all the boxes. Actually Harry Lennix isn't that old. He's just a few years older than me but they had him playing a 70+ year old in this movie. They couldn't find a legit old guy for this movie? Was Danny Glover or Bill Cobbs busy that week? Anyway, one of the things that fell out of one of the boxes that Frank knocked over was an old black and white picture from way back in in 1971 of him and his old girlfriend Claire. Again, I'm thinking most pictures taken in 1971 were in color, but they had to make it look old-timey somehow. Frank sees this old picture, admires the old picture, decides to use it as a bookmark and go his merry way.
Part of going his merry way is eating at the local diner co-owned by Megan (Laura Vandervoort). Megan is all broken hearted as her fiancé broke off their engagement some months back, and today would be the day of the wedding, but she soldiers through like a trooper and besides, her favorite customer, Frank, has just come in. She joins him, sees the photograph, gets all up in his business asking questions about Claire and has decided that the widowed Frank should seek her out. Frank told her to 'Stay out my business!' but Megan heard 'Get deeper in my business!'.
Megan goes home, does her research, kind of tracks down Claire who is also a widow and the next day presents this info to Frank. Her plan is that they have an adventure, drive the seven hours to wherever they think Claire lives and see if they can rekindle that fifty year old fire. Frank politely tells Megan to 'kick rocks and PLEASE stay out my business', but Megan looks so sad and pathetic that Frank decides to agree to this madness, so off on the adventure they go.
During the road trip Megan and Frank stop for gas and coffee where Megan is nearly knocked to the ground by a boorish dude on the phone walking a dog. Homeboy didn't really have time to properly apologize for knocking coffee all over Megan and just stuffs a wad of bills in her hands. That totally works for me, but Megan was offended. Soon we get to meet this boorish dude, Steve (Niall Matter), who was rushing to get to the Inn / B&B that he is renovating in Christmastown or whatever this town is called, with his parents.
Back to Frank and Megan, turns out Claire doesn't live in that house they drove seven hours to, and Frank is ready to go home, but apparently Claire left a note mentioning she's moved to Christmastown and Megan is dragging Frank along to chase down that lead. At this point Frank has become a hostage.
Now in Christmastown, where to stay? How about the lodge run by the boorish dude? Well Megan is none too happy with this dude, but he apologizes profusely and promises to make things right... by making her fall in love with him.
But the main mission is tracking down Claire, and we've found her! In a nursing home. Damn. At least Frank thought that old biddy was Claire, gave her flowers and everything, but when the actual Claire (Liza Huget) who works at the home shows up, she is none too happy to see Frank and rekindled love ain't happening on this day. Since that's over, Frank would like to go home, but did we mention he's a hostage now?
Meanwhile, Steve is trying desperately to make Megan fall in love with him. They play a game called Pass the Ornament with some orphan kids, I assume these kids are orphans, and that goes well because one thing I've learned about Holiday Romantic Movie Ladies is that they are terribly clumsy and often fall down requiring them to be caught. Well done Steve! He also convinces Megan, who then coerces Frank, into caroling with him and his family, with Megan's plan being to have Frank woo Claire with song. Man, I thought these actor types were all triple threats, singers, dancer, actors... but Harry Lennix cannot sing, or he was pretending he can't sing, but it was awful. This guy was one of the Five Heartbeats for goodness sakes! I guess that was movie magic at work back then. Anyways, Claire is not receptive and tells Frank that she can't allow him to break her heart again.
What! No Frank! What did you do! Now this changes everything. Frank explains that way back in '71 a man had to ask a girls father for her hand, but Claire's jerk off of a dad said nope, he wasn't good enough, so Frank fled and joined the army. So that's over, Frank wants to go home, but Megan still won't let him. She continues her meddling, this time convincing Claire to at least have a dinner with Frank and that goes very well, but Claire still wants to know why Frank abandoned her all those years ago. Simple answer, 'your asshole dad', but Frank doesn't say that. He says everything but that. Lead off with that Frank! Claire reiterates that her heart still hasn't healed and runs away. Steve, meanwhile, has also failed to convince Megan to fall to in love with him, despite a spirited luncheon featuring a Campbell's Soup™ Green Bean Casserole topped with French's™ fried onions, and she runs away. Finally they go home.
Alas, they have to turn around because Steve's magical mutt snuck into the car, so back to the lodge they go, which means they have to go to the Christmas Party. Frank had written a letter to Claire detailing her asshole dad's shenanigans, a letter which also contained the homemade engagement ring he made for her back in the day. Frank sees Claire enter the party, follows her in, and now she understands that her dad was an asshole and old-timey love is rekindled! Steve sees Megan, says some words and now they are making out on the dance floor. Not sure why, but there they go. At Christmas.
Here's the problem with 'A Christmas Together With You', other than the convoluted title, and this would be that it's very difficult to tell two complete stories in 80 minutes time. The old timey couple fared much better because the filmmakers were able to establish a past history between the two, so not nearly as much work was needed for us buy into them having a relationship. It also helps that they managed to rope Harry Lennix into the role of Frank which further sells us on the illusion. Our younger couple, however, really spent hardly any time together so when they started making out at the end of the movie, not nearly enough time was put in to justify why they are locking lips on the dance floor. This one would've been better served as two movies, one in which Megan kidnaps Frank and drags him on a road trip to find love, and the second movie where Frank willingly tags along with Megan, playing the thankless role of The Magical Black Person to help Megan and some rando find love.
Our vomit worthy checklist was on the low-side in this one, but again, trying to tell two distinct stories didn't leave much room for other stuff. There was no snow, so we didn't get any snowball fights or snowman making, no mistletoe, I can't recall any cookie baking and making a Campbell's Soup™ Green Bean Casserole certainly does not count. There were no near miss kisses, I vaguely recall somebody drinking cocoa, we did get some tree decorating and a tree lighting but it was done by Steve and his family as opposed to Megan and Frank so it lost some of its impact, and there was some caroling. Bad caroling, but at least it was in there. We did get the hint of underprivileged orphan kids though, so that's something.
Probably not the best effort you're going to see this season, but Harry Lennix is in it and I doubt he's going to show up in too many of these so at least enjoy that. Two Vomits!
By the by, I Googled '1971 Photographs' and the vast majority of them were in black and white. I stand corrected.
By the by, I Googled '1981 Photographs' and they TOO were mostly in black and white. I was around in 1981 so I know for a fact most of the photos were in color. It would appear that Google Images leans towards 'artsy' black and white photos. I rescind my standing corrected.
By the by, if you do Google '1971 photographs', you may be greeted, as I was, with very interesting 1971 black and whites of Jane Seymour. There are worse things.
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