Christmas at the Plaza
premiered on Hallmark Channel's Countdown to Christmas on November 28th
and stars Elizabeth Henstridge (Jessica) and Ryan Paevey (Nick). Bruce
Davison (Reginald) and Julia Duffy (Amanda) appear in supporting roles.
RATING (out of 5): 🎄🎄🎄
General
Movie Details: Jessica is researching the Plaza to put together a
legacy display for the holiday season. Nick is the head Christmas
decorator for the Plaza this year.
Meet
Cute Moment: Jessica is meeting her contact at the Plaza and
accidentally moves his ladder and literally leaves him hanging while
decorating and of course it turns out they will be working closely
together over the coming weeks.
Notable Knitwear
Alert: Nick takes Jessica to his home for an ugly sweater party where
they wrap gifts and make cookies for the veterans and the party ends
with a round of karaoke.
Obligatory moment of
snark/personal rant: I generally dislike when the female characters are
portrayed as having a lack of confidence and part of the plot is to
build up the character to believe in themselves. However, it is a
common device among many movies marketed towards women. I also dislike
when the always present moment of confusion/misunderstanding pivots
around a barely even mentioned ex. So you'd think that I wouldn't like
this movie but I did. I really liked the inspiration for the exhibit
being the Christmas tree toppers over the years. I found much of the
storage of the Plaza's archives to be unbelievable, I guess that comes
with this fictional world. I did like that Jessica dumps the jerk of
the boyfriend but it is sad that the script had to make him such a
stereotypical unsupportive male counterpart and that to him she was
merely relatively intelligent eye candy. The associated mystery of the
1969 tree topper was an interesting twist but I found it odd that
Jessica and Nick wouldn't just go online to see if the East Village
store was still in business instead of going to actually find the store
on foot. I didn't buy the fact that after 50 years Reginald could just
go back and finish the finial he started back then. I also didn't buy
the tidy bow that the Reginald storyline is tied up in the end. I did
enjoy that the movie's conclusion at the Plaza on Christmas Eve. By the
way, I would totally attend the Plaza's exhibit at the Oak Room. That
sounds totally up my alley.
Hallmark
Movie Connection: This is Elizabeth's first foray in a Hallmark movie.
She is known for her role on the long-running Marvel's Agents of Shield
TV series. I hope to see her other Hallmark movies as her schedule
allows. Ryan has appeared in several Hallmark movies with a mixed
approval rating my me. He was previously seen in From Friend to Fiance
(2019) with Jocelyn Hudon.
Let me know if you enjoyed this movie as well despite some of the bothersome tropes.
No comments:
Post a Comment