Last year, I established the rules of this project as "watch what's on." The best part of making the rules is you can say the rules are stupid and change them. After suffering through some legit trash last season I decided to curate my picks this year because let's be honest I can tell from the descriptions at this point which ones are either going to be good or make for a good piece.
Hallmark Description:
When Lucy wakes up with a wedding dress in hand, she believes that she is late to her wedding with her ex-boyfriend Zach. However, she has no recollection of the past 2 years, including the fact that she is engaged to another man.
When judging good vs. going to make a good piece I thought this one would be the latter. It's a solidly ridiculous premise that kind of circles the Groundhog Day genre that I so love and it co-stars Andrew Walker and I had queued up a bunch of jokes about how could Nate cheat on our sweet Meg?!*
*Yes, I know other sites write articles like these but only mine have continuity!
Anyway — Mr. Walker must be the magic ingredient because once again we have a Hallmark Movie that I legitimately liked! In fact, I'm actually not convinced that Hallmark didn't make this movie especially for me after years of spending my Christmas season head-first in the trough of their content. Lucky me!
Christmas on My Mind starts with a bang both literally and metaphorically. Our heroine (and a heroine she is) runs out of a bridal shop and smacks her head. Said smack on the head causes Lucy to immediately forget the last two years of her life. Sadly for our modern world, this does not work. If it did I would be out cracking my head all over the sidewalk THIS VERY INSTANT. (Or maybe I would have a couple of months ago.)
Oh, save it, YouTube.
Anyways, Lucy has forgotten her last two years, and apparently, it's been a big two years. A slim 24 months ago she was supposed to marry restauranteur Zach (Walker) but now she's engaged to some Beta Businessman. She doesn't remember that so she heads over to Zach's restaurant and is like "time to ruin that honeymoon suite fiancee of mine!" But Zach is like "Full disclosure: we broke up two years ago. Let's not go shooting down good ideas though."
Unfortunately, Beta Businessman shows up and he's nice enough but in a total loser-y way that only gets more loser-y as we progress.
Lucy has a best friend that knows everything about modern Lucy but not much about two years ago Lucy. Apparently, Modern Lucy is engaged to Beta Businessman and is a totally stiff, uncool person who lives in a pre-furnished McMansion and never bakes anything but does have a dope closet. Two Years Ago Lucy was arty and rad and baked like there was no tomorrow and she was engaged to Zach. That's a big two years, Lucy.
Well, New Lucy smartly thinks that Modern Lucy is a drag and that Two Years Ago Lucy had it going on. No one stops to tell her that you can skip over a few years of character development by watching a movie about yourself in the TVA office but it's for the best. Modern Lucy DOES suck.
It's with this in mind that New Lucy tells Beta Businessman to hit that dusty trail so that she can try and get her memories back without him bugging her about spreadsheets and generally bumming everyone out by just being him. He heads back to the office to just suck and Lucy pals around with Zach.
So Lucy and Zach hit the ice rink and the Christmas tree lot AND decorate the tree together and hot damn if that isn't the trifecta of Hallmark romance I don't know what is. If they had a snowball fight my TV might have exploded from TOO MUCH TRUE LOVE!
Of course, Beta Businessman shows up again to be like "hey, you know you're engaged to me, right?" but Lucy is all "scram, loser." So he totally does and it's the most civil break-up in the history of the universe which is crazy because these two were engaged to be wed in weeks. Yet, Beta Businessman, true to his name is just like, "Aw, geez. What a drag. Okay, be happy." This tool fights for Lucy 0% and makes this pretty lame plot contrivance work because seriously, fuck this guy. What a doormat.
Meanwhile, Zach has been trying to tell Lucy that their break-up wasn't all her fault. (She thinks it is.) Convenient distractions keep preventing him from telling her and that's a little plot-devicey too but we're going to let it ride because this movie is about to get awesome.
Lucy has seen enough of her Modern self and proudly exclaims: "FUCK MODERN BUSINESS LUCY!" That Lucy chose business over art and New Lucy is having none of it. She has a whole monologue about how art should be made for art's sake and that capitalism can eat a bag of dicks. She renounces Modern Lucy and wisely realizes that Two Years Ago Lucy was where it's at. YOU GO, GIRL!
Also, there's a hilarious misunderstanding about who broke up with who and why and whatever it's all good, it's smooches all around for Lucy and Zach but more importantly, she's just completely RAH-RAH! ART RULES AND YOUR ECONOMY CAN EAT ITS OWN ASS!
I may be paraphrasing a bit but seriously, the message of this movie is totally business ruins art and I love love love it for that.
Actual review:
Is this one my new favorite? I don't know. The music in Christmas Tree Lane is really good and I do love those characters but this one is right there. Aside from my huge bias for its art > business messaging the rom-com parts are better than average even if the premise is a little silly. Tim says: check it out.