A Christmas Cookie Catastrophe
Reviewed by Lisa Sue
So the opening 10 minutes of this movie are promising. I
came because of the word catastrophe in the title, but I stayed to learn who
stole Grandma’s cookie recipe. I mean what Grinch of a person would do such a
thing? Let me give you the set up. Anne
is a career focused MBA grad from the big city who’s just been handed the CEO
role of her grandma’s cookie company, Cooper’s. Things aren’t great at Cooper’s,
and Anne has been making the hard decisions like canceling the annual Cooper Christmas
Light Up because they just don’t have the money, and Anne isn’t going to let Cooper’s
go bankrupt, not on her watch. The day after the company holiday shin dig
(which apparently wasn’t cut for budgetary reasons), Anne notices that
Grandma’s cookie recipe, which had been prominently displayed without security,
had been taken! The quick thinking assistant Jillian suggests they call the
cops to investigate, but Anne puts the kibosh on that because if the board
knows that the recipe is missing, she’ll be fired for sure! Due to circumstances
(I think something like the manufacturing plant is on holiday until Christmas
or something) Anne thinks she has several days to find and recover the recipe
without the board noticing, so what could possibly go wrong?
Besides Anne and Jillian, they rope in the IT guy Calvin to
help solve this mystery, after clearing Calvin of the actual theft, naturally.
The paper copy of the recipe may have been unguarded, but the recipe on the
servers that is uploaded to the machines making the cookies did have some protection,
but the thief managed to breach Calvin’s impenetrable security fire walls.
Calvin is super psyched to be part of this crime solving team, having enjoyed
the Mistletoe Mysteries as a kid. But enthusiasm we soon find doesn’t make up
for actual detecting skills, or really help in finding leads. The first clue
they have is a punch card for Bella’s Bakery left at the scene of the crime, so
off Anne goes to accuse her first innocent person of being the thief, the
proprietor of Bella’s, Sam. Based on the fact that Sam doesn’t like that Anne
has been cutting Cooper’s community funding and that he is in need of money
himself, Anne immediately makes the accusation that Sam stole the recipe for
his own nefarious purposes. Sam of course is offended at such an accusation,
leaving Anne to sheepishly leave the store, but not before Bella, Sam’s
daughter, gives her one of their famous sugar plum cookies.
Anne doesn’t drive, she has an old wise chauffer in Arthur
to bring her from place to place. We learn that her not driving was due to her
losing her parents to a car accident when she was 18. Arthur tells Anne, well,
the ingredients to the cookie are listed on the box. It would take a very
talented baker to be able to find the right ratio of ingredients, but it could be
done. With this seed planted, Anne shows back up the next day at Bella’s to
both apologize as well as ask for help. The sugar plum cookie was a great
cookie, and if anyone could, Sam could reverse engineer Grandma’s recipe. That
is if he accepts Anne’s apology, which he doesn’t. But Anne isn’t some big city
hot shot for nothing, so what’s Sam’s price? Turns out that price is a new oven
for the bakery. So for a new oven, Sam winds up having Calvin, Jillian, and
Anne invade his bakery to find the thief as well as recreate Grandma’s secret
recipe. According to Anne, they need to set up shop away from Cooper’s and
prying eyes. Hence they invade Sam’s sterile baking (sacred) space.
Next these Nancy Drew’s investigate disgruntled ex-employees,
‘cause you know they have great motive. After some light stalking, queue the
second innocent person to be accused. Leaving oddly enough Calvin the worse for
wear as the disgruntled employee threw hot chestnuts at him. Turns out that
really hurts, in particular the salt from the roasted chestnuts that got into
Calvin’s eyes. While Sam admonishes Anne for accusing innocent people, he adds
to the list when he overhears his friend Frank say something fishy about his work
at Cooper’s. Jumping to conclusions, Sam accuses Frank of stealing the recipe.
Frank is innocent, and the issue he was discussing over the phone was his
nimrod cousin he hired. Nothing more. Still short on clues, and not any closer
to cracking the recipe; Anne gets desperate. The wanna be Hardy Boys Club
points out that it’s been nearly a week since the recipe was stolen, and
there’s been no ransom demand or other threats. So why did the thief take the
recipe? Doesn’t look like they want to profit off the stolen recipe after all,
but simply to hurt Anne.
This leads the Mistletoe Detectives to their next potential thief,
the mean board member Miriam. Miriam didn’t think that Anne was ready to be the
company CEO and certainly there is no love lost between them. And Miriam wasn’t
at the party the night the recipe was stolen, giving her both opportunity and
motive. Now I would have sworn the thief was Miriam, but turns out she too is
innocent. Except by accusing Miriam, the board now knows the recipe is gone,
the police are involved, and Anne is about to lose her job as CEO. In between
accusing all these innocent people of stealing the recipe, our crack crime
solvers were also tasting batch after batch of cookies that Sam is making. And
while all the batches are good, none are exactly like Grandma’s recipe. There’s
even a montage with Sam and Anne baking, so that he can understand how Grandma
baked. Cause he doesn’t make cookies just from the recipe, what makes his
cookies good is that he makes cookies for others. And while it is left unsaid,
I think we can all guess that Grandma’s secret ingredient was love.
So with no recipe and the board having fired her, Anne goes
to Grandma’s grave to have a heart to heart. She has learned in the past weeks
that there is more to Cooper’s cookies than profit and losses; it is about the
community and the town of Maplewood. Like Sam, Grandma Cooper didn’t make
cookies for herself; she made cookies for everyone else, and with our heroine
in dire straits, the true perpetuator of the theft steps forward, the wise old
chauffeur Arthur! Now Arthur was acting on Grandma’s wishes, ever the prankster
she had wanted to make sure that Anne learned how important Cooper’s was to the
town and that while they sold cookies it was so much more than that. Anne in the end did learn her lesson, the
board re-instated her as CEO, the recipe was returned safe and sound…and Sam
has a brand new oven for all his troubles. A dash of Nutcracker ballet, a
Nutcracker themed Christmas party at Sam’s, and the miracle of Christmas is
upon us. Sam and Anne find their happily ever after together.
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