Holiday Date premiered on Hallmark Channel's Countdown to Christmas on December 14th and stars Brittany Bristow (Brooke) and Matt Cohen (Joel). Teryl Rothery and Bruce Boxleitner also appear as Brooke's parents.
RATING (out of 5): 🎄🎄
General Movie Details: Brooke is a tailor in NYC for a designer but she wants to be a designer herself in the future. She is supposed to be bringing her boyfriend, Ethan, home to meet her parent's over the holiday. Only problem is that Ethan dumps her the evening before they are supposed to leave. Instead of going home by herself, her friends concoct a plan for an actor friend Joel to accompany her and play the role of Ethan. Joel is an actor who is up for the part of a guy from a small town who runs a hardware store. He gets the first-hand experience of small town life and she gets to save face. What could go wrong...
Meet Cute Moment: Brooke's just been dumped and is outside ringing the bell at her friend's apartment for their Friendmas Party. Joel comes up and starts going on about how much he loves this time of year. They realize they are going to the same Friendmas party - he remarks "which makes them friends". I have to admit that I kind of love his point-of-view in that moment.
Obligatory moment of snark/personal rant: I always like this premise but this one just presents too many issues for me to really buy into it. The fact that they do very little planning and quizzing each other on their drive to her parent's is problematic to me. The fact that it didn't come up that Joel is Jewish and has limited knowledge of Christmas and Christmas traditions is the prime example of this. I like the twist to celebrate both holidays in the movie but I think it could have been accomplished better. Something to keep in mind if you try this at home, pick your partner in crime very carefully and above all else PLAN. I really like the exterior of her parent's house (and her Mini Cooper in the drive). At least I can do some house hunting (read dreaming) while getting my Christmas movie fix. The introduction of an engagement storyline was simply unnecessary and didn't really add to the movie. I understand why they did it for plot purposes to get the "real" Ethan to show up at her parent's but I think they could have easily done without it. Brooke and Joel were already well on their way to having the jig be up anyway, no additional help required.
Hallmark Movie Connection: Brittany has appeared in a number of Hallmark movies but I believe this is her first time as the lead. She costarred in Christmas at the Palace (2018) which starred Merritt Patterson and Andrew Cooper. This appears to be Matt Cohen's first Hallmark film. I hope that his next vehicle has his character being less over the top.
I think that this movie just didn't really work for me because it was just too over the top. If it were toned down a bit then I think that it might have been more enjoyable. Let me know what you think.
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