Baking Spirits Bright
Mira (Rekha Sharma) is nutty about Fruitcake. Mira needs fruitcake the way most of us need oxygen. Part of this is that she is running operations for her parents fruitcake company Varma Fruitcakes, but unfortunately times aren't so good in the fruitcake industry at the moment, and Varma Fruitcakes is in a little bit of trouble. Which means, at some point, there were good times for fruitcakes? Who knew?
Down the ways a bit in Seattle, or maybe up since I don't know where Varma Fruitcakes is located, we will meet Brady (Dion Johnstone) who works for his smooth voiced father Trevor (Reese Alexander) for the number one marketing firm in the world! The whole world! Turns out that Mira's old man Avi (Manoj Sood) and Trevor are old college buddies, so Trevor is going to do his old friend a solid and send his marketing wiz of a son down to Varma Fruitcakes to see if he can put together a plan to rescue their business.
Brady doesn't want to do this, but what are you gonna do? Say no to your dad? Mira doesn't want Brady mucking around in her family business, but what are you gonna do? Say no to your dad? Right off the bat Mira hates everything that Brady and his assistant Finn (Riun Garner) have come up with so these two are NOT going to get along. Finn and Mira's little brother Ray (Praneet Akilla) on the other hand, love at first sight for those two, but this movie isn't about them.
Mira has a plan, she just has to introduce Brady to the ways of the Varma Christmas Magic so he can put together a presentation that captures the love and family that fruitcake is all about. Dang if Mira's various Christmas activities and the time these two are spending together don't start to work on ol' corporate Brady, even resulting in a near miss kiss during the Christmas Stocking event. But there is the curiosity that is Mira's bestie Tim hanging around who looks to be Brady's competition. So I'm wondering what is Tim's deal? I doubt he's gay since little bro and the assistant have already filled that quota, so what's up? Is he legit comp? No, his wife just died and Mira has been helping him cope, and he even has a potential new girlfriend. None of which Brady is aware of, of course.
Regardless, things are going crazy good between Brady and Mira resulting in yet another near miss kiss. Two near miss kisses people! Things are going too good actually because it's time for the thing to happen. In this movie the thing is Brady's company getting a gigantic account and his dad calling him back to HQ immediately! I mean right f'n now! Brady really doesn't want to go to the point he's kind of whining about it to his old man, but he is needed back home. He sadly breaks the news to Mira, they are both devastated, love is derailed.
Back in Seattle Brady is starting work on the new account but his dad can see his son is distracted. Distracted to the point that his dad is like 'Damn, just go'. Brady rushes back to the Varma house, only to wrongly assume Tim has become Mira's new man. But not so fast mister sad man! Mira sees sad Brady, grabs him by the lapels, wonders what took him so long to come back to her, and love is back on track! At Christmas.
There's a scene in this movie where Mira and Tim where having a heart to heart, with Tim encouraging Mira to go for Brady. They're simply perfect for each other. Mira says 'I don't need a man to complete my life'. Girl, bite your tongue! Don't you DARE blaspheme on my TV! You are in a Hallmarky holiday romance movie, which exists for the sole reason for you to get a man! Tim tried to clean up this kerfuffle, because he didn't want the Hallmarky gods to strike down this poor woman, by saying you might not NEED him, but you know you WANT him. I guess we'll accept that.
Anyway, every once in a while I'll watch one of these Holiday Romance movies and go 'Wow, this one was actually good!'. This isn't one of those movies as it is pretty much on the level as almost all of them, but we are still pleased when we get to see things from a different perspective, this time being from the view of an Eastern Indian American family (even though the actors are mostly Eastern Indian Canadian). Did you know that Fruitcake is called Plum Cake in India, and is universally loved? That might explain why a hard working immigrant couple would build a Fruitcake business thinking it would be a good idea. Did you know that it was tough being the only Indian girl at Robert Louis Stevenson High? Is that even a school? I looked it up, there is one in NYC. I wonder is that the one Mira went to?
The vomit worthiness of this one was low to middle of the road. No cookie baking, but there was plenty of fruitcake baking so I guess we'll have to let that pass. No snow, which means STILL no snowmen or snowball fights this year, absolutely no children in this movie so obviously no orphan kids, but they did mention orphan kids. We did get ugly sweaters, and some rather suspect Christmas caroling, and also no mistletoe which our leads really needed because they kept near miss kissing. I'm not sure they drank hot cocoa, but they were drinking foamy, Christmassy looking drinks which again we will have to let that pass too.
Rekha Sharma and her very official high school principle voice is a lovely woman and her and Dion Johnstone looked like they got a long fine, the young lady playing her sister, Aadila Dosani is pure fire and should get her own Romance movie in the near future. Baking Spirits Bright pretty much does what it was designed to do. Two Vomits!
Random thoughts though, while they did declare their love for each other, she's still the CEO of a fruitcake company and he is inline to be the head of the NUMBER ONE marketing firm IN THE WORLD. I don't know how they're going to work out the love logistics on that one. Other than the fact the fruitcake business is destined to fail.
Then there's the peculiar situation of Dion Johnstone's inconsistent fade. Sometimes the fade is close to the scalp, other scenes it's a good 7 days worth of growth. I'm assuming they had no on-set barber for my man. Admittedly, most people probably wouldn't notice this except for folks who have hair like Dion, such as myself. Just pointing it out is all.
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