Review of Marry Me at Christmas

Hmm, ... synopsis doesn't quite get this right, and other reviews don't explain clearly or fixate on silly details, such as the hairstyles. In a small mountain skiing town, Madeline / Maddie and her best friend, Isabel, are struggling with their bridal wear store. When pretty Ginger Blake, and her mild-mannered medical resident (student) boyfriend, Oliver, enter the store, looking for a wedding gown, they are also wanting to marry, quickly (before Oliver takes up a medical residency in Cambridge University, England), in this little country town, preposterously named Fool's Gold. (On the other hand, the novelist who wrote the book this movie is based on wrote an entire series of romances set in this trash-named town!) Madeline is quick to offer advice, and, soon, although she has NO experience as a wedding planner, Ginger likes her, and her enthusiasm, and wants Maddie to plan her wedding on Christmas Eve. Maddie is still emotionally bruised from a relationship breakdown three years earlier, and deeply distrustful. (This is not helped when her ex and his new partner wander into town and coincidentally encounter Maddie! But that is a blip in the story rather than a major event.) Suddenly we learn that someone called Johnny Blake is Ginger's older brother, and a famous star in popular action movies. Although his pushy and basically obnoxious Hollywood agent is almost forcing him into a sequel adventure movie, Johnny is refusing to read the script, and uses the back page to draw doodle-pictures. Persistently ignoring his agent, Johnny has suspended his Hollywood career and moved to the little town (which fortunately is a car-trip away from Los Angeles) to help organise and pay for Ginger's wedding. We learn that Johnny and Ginger's parents died when Johnny was finishing high school, and he has been looking after her ever since in a parental way - he is a caring, protective big brother. We also begin to realise that Johnny likes drawing, and he is often seen (secretly!) sketching the Christmas scenes and people around the little town. Very quickly, Johnny is impressed by Maddie's energy, and natural charm, and he becomes emotionally interested. But Maddie is much more cautious. The story is complicated when Maddie sees Johnny on a celebrity TV channel seeming to be involved with a Hollywood starlet, reminding her of how she was betrayed, suddenly dumped by her previous boyfriend. On the other hand, Johnny feels used by Maddie when his celebrity-face is splashed across the bridal store's web-site - in fact, this exploitation of Johnny's stardom was secretly done by Isabel, foolishly, trying to use Johnny's stardom to promote the bridal store. At one point, the town's usual Santa Claus has not arrived in time for the town Christmas market, to meet the children in the usual way at Santa's Workshop. Johnny happens to be at the Christmas market and spontaneously and generously offers to put on the Santa costume, and he very quickly shows, being an experienced actor, that he can play the traditional role of Santa quite convincingly. But he reveals his truly sensitive nature when a boy hops on Johnny-Santa's lap, and tells Santa that all he wants for Christmas is for his father to come home. Naturally Santa asks where the boy's father is. Waiting for Johnny's response, watching this, we immediately think of a divorced or broken family, or a dad working far away, or posted away in the military, or even, perhaps in prison "He's in Heaven," says the boy, sadly. Johnny-Santa is initially stunned, but very quickly says exactly the right, compassionate and consolatory things to the boy. He asks the boy if he talks to his father when he goes to bed. "Yes, every night," the boy answers. "If you do that every night," Johnny-Santa says, "your father will always be with you." (This is tiny episode is close to the beautiful exchange between Santa-Claus and the sad, adopted-child in Miracle on 34th Street, both the classic Edmund Gwenn, and the modern Richard Attenborough versions!) Later, when Maddie, who overheard this, asks Johnny about this, he admits he had been thinking of himself and his grieving for his own father. (Johnny is not just an action-movie hero with a big square jaw and a hairstylist's surf-wave of hair! Actually, Johnny has the exaggerated handsomeness of Channing Tatum, for example.) Because this is a Hallmark Christmas romance, everything is eventually happily resolved, but Johnny has to try very hard, and very patiently, to soften Maddie's scarred feelings!! (Perhaps there is a hidden metaphor in the fact that Oliver, the bridegroom, is a cardiothoracic specialist - a "heart guy" - and arranges for his groom's cake, an alternative that is served alongside the traditional couple's wedding cake, to be in the shape of an oversized physiologically realistic human heart! This tradition of the groom's cake as a second, different wedding cake, is not widely known outside Southern states in the USA, even though it originated in Victorian England, when modern wedding traditions were being invented. Fortunately, we only glimpse this groom's cake through the top of the box: dark red and meaty, with darker wiggly arteries curling around it, ... erk! In the movie Steel Magnolias the groom's cake is in the shape of a giant armadillo!) Well cast, well acted, and with some witty moments in the script. For example, Maddie is happy to spend the evening going to a restaurant with Johnny as long as he agrees it will not be a "date". Eager to reassure her, and take her out, he suggests it will be an "outing" between friends! Similarly, when they find themselves beneath a bunch of mistletoe, they almost kiss, according to the usual tradition. But Maddie asks what FRIENDS traditionally do beneath mistletoe. Johnny reassures her that friends do a high-five! And there are some touching moments of heightened emotion - and gentle romance! The key relationship issue is that Johnny and Maddie have to trust one another, rather than leap to negative conclusions if something doesn't seem right. Can Maddie trust Johnny if he goes back to Hollywood? Can Johnny trust Maddie to accept his art? Maybe this in not one of the GREAT Christmas movies, nor one of the great Hallmark Christmas movies, but it is certainly a good one! You can enjoy this repeatedly -- because it has heart!