Christmas on Mistletoe Lake
So my algorithm, known as The Universe which randomly chooses the movies for me this year, heard my complaint about the last movie I watched, 'His and Her Christmas', and how the two main characters didn't actually meet until deep into the third act. She fixed all that with this one. How about a movie where the two leads spend 90% of the movie connected to the hip, to the point where you almost get sick of seeing them together? I think The Universe is starting to take some of these criticisms personal.
Meet Reilly (Genelle Williams) who is tooling down the street on her way to Mistletoe Lake, a place of unmatched Christmas beauty her grandparents insisted she visit before she dies. Reilly's first stop when she gets into Mistletoe Lake is the local bakery. I don't why she stopped in there because she certainly didn't buy any pastries, but if she didn't stop at the bakery she wouldn't have met the strapping Ray, as played by professional Holiday movie female accessory Corey Sevier. This is like the 20th Hallmarky movie this still relatively young man has popped up in. Regardless of all of that, these two engage in some witty repartee, and Reilly like what she sees. I mean I saw her drop those eyes as my man was walking away, so, you know... She's down. She also meets Ray's rambunctious daughter Emma (Hattie Kragten) who almost immediately starts procuring Reilly to be her father's concubine.
So there are lot of things going on in this movie, but none of them are ultimately too terribly important in this movie, but are just place holders to force Reilly and Ray together. So let's just bullet point this.
- Reilly arbitrarily cancels her hotel reservation and has now has no place to stay
- Emma, pimping out Reilly pretty hard, says she can stay on the family boat
- Ray is working on the boat so he can sell it because he's broke.
- Reilly, A professional home stager, knows how to work on boat engines (!)
- I don't know what Ray does for a living. The Bakery? But he doesn't sell one pastry in this movie.
- Louis (writer / director Robin Dunne) is also in town to buy the boat and gentrify Mistletoe Lake
- Reilly's sister Tara (Kyana Teresa) is happy Louis is there so they can get more staging business
- FYI Reilly's sister and her parents are also en route to Mistletoe Lake
- Meanwhile, Reilly and Ray are:
- Taking long walks
- Drinking disgusting eggnog (Coconut Milk Eggnog... see?)
- Having romantic dinners
- Looking at Lighthouses
- Doing Christmas Karaoke
- Roasting marshmallows
- Cross country skiing (montage)
- Changing boat alternators. Reilly does engine work in a white cashmere sweater.
- Decorating boats (Montage)
- Shopping for clothes (Montage)
- Making out. No near miss kiss for these two.
- And other stuff I'm sure I left out. They spend a lot of time together
I am curious where Emma's mom is though. They chose not to kill her off, with Ray telling Reilly that he and this woman just divorced, but you would think she'd still want to be with her daughter around the holidays... if she were still alive.
So what's going to tear these two young lovers apart? Our writer / director made something happen, but it seemed kind of forced. Louis wants Reilly to stage the boat that Ray has already agreed to sell to him. Seems logical. It's what Reilly and her sister do, and they've done it for this guy plenty of times already. Louis also wants to resell this boat after it gets fixed up. Seems logical. It's his boat, he should be able to do whatever the hell he wants to do with it. Louis also has some investors and wants to completely redo the entire town of Mistletoe Lake and give the bulk of this decorating business to Reilly and her sister. All of this is looking like nothing but wins to me. Slam dunks even.
The problem is Reilly doesn't want to do any of these things because it would spoil the magic of Mistletoe lake. Waaaaah. Somehow Ray finds out that Reilly might possibly, maybe be working for Louis doing these things and he feels betrayed. Hold up bro, as far as I can tell you don't have a job, your daughter just got accepted to some fancy school which you can't pay for, but the Good Lord has blessed you with some random woman, who is pure fire, who has just floated into town, who is on the verge of a hella windfall, and for reasons I don't understand has somehow fallen in love you, and have found issues with this? Take the multiple victories that have been gifted to you here homeboy.
Fortunately everything works out. I guess. At the local Christmas party, Louis explains to Ray that Reilly was not working for him and he also sees the error of his ways and gifts Ray back his boat. Still, Ray's broke ass can't afford to dock his boat so the city gifts him permanent dockage for free. Still, Ray's broke ass can't afford his daughters school but the school calls him at the party, Christmas Day, to let him know his daughter has a full scholarship, Louis decides not to gentrify Mistletoe Lake and Reilly quits her job with her sister do her own thing. Whatever that is. Oh, and Louis also gifts Ray a new alternator for his boat, which they all go to install, while dressed in formal wear. Haven't learned a thing about that white cashmere sweater incident, have we Reilly? Then Reilly and Ray, both unemployed as far as I can tell, ride on the now fixed boat and make out under stars. At Christmas.
Well, that was functional, I suppose. At this point I'm kind of looking forward to one of these Romantic Christmas movies either being really bad or really good, just to break up the monotony of rote functionality. We can have some fun with terrible, but it's difficult to have fun with tolerable. And Christmas on Mistletoe Lake is quite tolerable. Attractive leads, familiar story, a cute kid, some wise old people, mistletoe, break-up, make-up... you know the routine. And all done at a leisurely pace.
This one was missing quite a few vomit worthy elements though. No hot cocoa drinking, and Coconut milk eggnog certainly does not count. No Christmas caroling and no, Christmas karaoke does not count either. No cookie baking or gingerbread making, despite the presence of bakery that the family allegedly owns, no snowball fights, no snowman making, no near miss kiss, and no orphans? Come on Robin Dunne, you've been in enough of these movies to know how they are supposed to go brother.
Low on the vomit scale, marginal on the entertainment, we present to you Christmas on Mistletoe Lake.
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