WISH UPON A CHRISTMAS
A corporate actuary returns to her hometown to cut jobs at a struggling ornament factory owned by her former high school boyfriend.
In Wish Upon A Christmas, Larisa Oleynik plays George Clooney from Up In The Air, she travels back to her hometown of Carbon Footprint, Nevada to fire a whole bunch of people who work at the ornament factory owned by her corporate masters, falls back in love with her high school sweetheart Aaron Ashmore (the older and less successful of the Ashmore twins), some stuff happens, then Santa Claus saves the day and that's pretty much the entire plot.
Ashmore is the current manager of the ornament factory, the third generation of Ashmores to operate the family business, but his daddy sold the place to some soulless corporate entity a few years before he retired, leaving his son to stand as a glorified company figurehead with no real power. His wife died a few years ago, leaving him to raise his son Billy, the boy who has perpetual Kool-Aid mouth and still believes in Santa Claus despite being at least 12, alone. After Billy witnesses what appears to be a meteor crash into the woods outside of town from his bedroom window one night in the first act, a much more interesting movie plot began formulating in my diseased brain, because that's basically how both versions of Invaders From Mars get started.
Unfortunately, there is no alien invasion sub-plot in this movie, because the "meteor" that slammed into the tired old trees surrounding Billy's palatial estate is actually Santa's sleigh, and the jolly old elf spends most of the movie wandering around town, trying to find a dumb ornament that fell off his ride when he crashed into the forest after getting blackout drunk with some one-percenters at the Sturgis rally in South Dakota.
Larisa & Aaron realize their strong feelings for each other never really went away, and she tries to figure out a way to cut costs down at the failing ornament factory without having to fire any of the unstable employees. One of them, a sculptor named Jeff or Danny or something weird, acts like he's perpetually one step away from just burning the whole factory down on a good day, and they all hum Christmas carols all day at work. Well, one carol in particular, being "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing". They hum this song in unison every single day while they create cheap-looking Christmas ornaments in their sweatshop. Only "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing". Again and again and again. They act like some kind of creepy Christmas cult, and as such I found it difficult to care about any of their fates as the sword of Damocles dangled above their empty heads.
Santa intervenes with Larisa's corporate masters, ordering a vast quantity of ornaments under one of his numerous shell companies, more than enough to keep Aaron Ashmore's business afloat for years to come, Jeff or Danny or whatever gets to keep his job so the factory doesn't burn down, Alan Thicke pops up in a brief and useless cameo playing Larisa's retired father, Aaron gets back together with Larisa and everything's just great. That's all that happens in the movie. It's a simple, straight-forward movie, and it's fine.
Another Lifetime original movie, I chose to watch this because there were no good options for the day on the Hallmark Channel, and I was surprised to actually not hate this one, because I don't think I've ever not hated any of the Lifetime holiday-themed original movies I've seen, not just for this feature but in general. Larisa Oleynik and Aaron Ashmore are both fine actors who make a fine on-screen couple, and that chemistry goes a long way toward selling the cookie-cutter plot, making the whole endeavor feel less tired.
The actor who plays Santa Claus looks almost exactly like Will Hare, the ator who played Billy's insane grandfather in the holiday classic Silent Night, Deadly Night, which I found a little disconcerting. It's not Will Hare, because that man died in 1997, but I don't know who this guy is, because as far as IMDB is concerned, Wish Upon A Christmas doesn't exist. He looks like Kevin McNulty, the man who played the Baxter Building's doorman in the awful Tim Story-directed Fantastic Four movies, but I don't know for sure.
(Edit: further research confirms McNulty for Santa Claus in Wish Upon A Christmas)
Wish Upon A Christmas is a perfectly fine, non-offensive viewing experience that I guess I actually enjoyed, despite my track record with Lifetime's holiday fare. And because it's not a Hallmark production, it features a scene where Larisa Oleynik pounds bourbon shots with a jaded department store Santa in some hole in the wall bar, and that almost makes the whole movie worth it all on its own. Hooray!
VERDICT: SHOTS!
In Wish Upon A Christmas, Larisa Oleynik plays George Clooney from Up In The Air, she travels back to her hometown of Carbon Footprint, Nevada to fire a whole bunch of people who work at the ornament factory owned by her corporate masters, falls back in love with her high school sweetheart Aaron Ashmore (the older and less successful of the Ashmore twins), some stuff happens, then Santa Claus saves the day and that's pretty much the entire plot.
Ashmore is the current manager of the ornament factory, the third generation of Ashmores to operate the family business, but his daddy sold the place to some soulless corporate entity a few years before he retired, leaving his son to stand as a glorified company figurehead with no real power. His wife died a few years ago, leaving him to raise his son Billy, the boy who has perpetual Kool-Aid mouth and still believes in Santa Claus despite being at least 12, alone. After Billy witnesses what appears to be a meteor crash into the woods outside of town from his bedroom window one night in the first act, a much more interesting movie plot began formulating in my diseased brain, because that's basically how both versions of Invaders From Mars get started.
Unfortunately, there is no alien invasion sub-plot in this movie, because the "meteor" that slammed into the tired old trees surrounding Billy's palatial estate is actually Santa's sleigh, and the jolly old elf spends most of the movie wandering around town, trying to find a dumb ornament that fell off his ride when he crashed into the forest after getting blackout drunk with some one-percenters at the Sturgis rally in South Dakota.
Larisa & Aaron realize their strong feelings for each other never really went away, and she tries to figure out a way to cut costs down at the failing ornament factory without having to fire any of the unstable employees. One of them, a sculptor named Jeff or Danny or something weird, acts like he's perpetually one step away from just burning the whole factory down on a good day, and they all hum Christmas carols all day at work. Well, one carol in particular, being "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing". They hum this song in unison every single day while they create cheap-looking Christmas ornaments in their sweatshop. Only "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing". Again and again and again. They act like some kind of creepy Christmas cult, and as such I found it difficult to care about any of their fates as the sword of Damocles dangled above their empty heads.
Santa intervenes with Larisa's corporate masters, ordering a vast quantity of ornaments under one of his numerous shell companies, more than enough to keep Aaron Ashmore's business afloat for years to come, Jeff or Danny or whatever gets to keep his job so the factory doesn't burn down, Alan Thicke pops up in a brief and useless cameo playing Larisa's retired father, Aaron gets back together with Larisa and everything's just great. That's all that happens in the movie. It's a simple, straight-forward movie, and it's fine.
Another Lifetime original movie, I chose to watch this because there were no good options for the day on the Hallmark Channel, and I was surprised to actually not hate this one, because I don't think I've ever not hated any of the Lifetime holiday-themed original movies I've seen, not just for this feature but in general. Larisa Oleynik and Aaron Ashmore are both fine actors who make a fine on-screen couple, and that chemistry goes a long way toward selling the cookie-cutter plot, making the whole endeavor feel less tired.
The actor who plays Santa Claus looks almost exactly like Will Hare, the ator who played Billy's insane grandfather in the holiday classic Silent Night, Deadly Night, which I found a little disconcerting. It's not Will Hare, because that man died in 1997, but I don't know who this guy is, because as far as IMDB is concerned, Wish Upon A Christmas doesn't exist. He looks like Kevin McNulty, the man who played the Baxter Building's doorman in the awful Tim Story-directed Fantastic Four movies, but I don't know for sure.
(Edit: further research confirms McNulty for Santa Claus in Wish Upon A Christmas)
Wish Upon A Christmas is a perfectly fine, non-offensive viewing experience that I guess I actually enjoyed, despite my track record with Lifetime's holiday fare. And because it's not a Hallmark production, it features a scene where Larisa Oleynik pounds bourbon shots with a jaded department store Santa in some hole in the wall bar, and that almost makes the whole movie worth it all on its own. Hooray!
VERDICT: SHOTS!
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