JUST IN TIME FOR CHRISTMAS
A young psychology professor is allowed to see into the future to help make a tough choice.
Lindsay is in a quandary. Living with her ailing mother and eccentric grandfather (Christopher Lloyd) in her hometown of Harbourview, Washington, working as a psychology professor at the local university, and dating her high school sweetheart and café owner Jason, Lindsay is happy, but she dreams of more. And the opportunity for more arrives when she receives a tenured job offer from Yale University and a lucrative publishing deal to boot. But Jason has just proposed marriage, and Lindsay is at a crossroads in her life, unsure of which choice would be the path to true happiness: a modest life in Harbourview with Jason, or her dream job at a prestigious university?
Luckily for Lindsay, an enigmatic coachman (William Shatner) arrives and offers her a lift in his mysterious carriage of mystery, and after being transfixed by a curious lightshow in the sky, she finds herself transported three years into the future, having chosen to move to Connecticut to pursue her career as a respected professor and published author. Unfortunately for Lindsay, she remembers none of the events that have occurred in the last three years, and finds herself playing catch-up as she reacquaints herself with her new reality.
Her mother has moved to Sweden to live with her new cardiologist husband, she hasn't visited her hometown since she left for Yale, and Jason has expanded his business, now the proud owner of three popular cafes throughout the state of Washington. And he's about to get married to another woman. So that's a thing. After being shown how things will turn out if she chooses her career over love and finding herself disturbed by the path her life has taken, the enigmatic coachman returns to offer her a ride back into the past... or the present, I suppose.
Back home, does Lindsay choose to stay in Harbourview with Jason, choosing love over her career? No, because that's stupid. She chooses to have it all, relocating to Connecticut with her new husband Jason, who opens a new café in New Haven while she takes the tenured position at Yale that she has dreamed of ever since she was a child, because screw binary choices. And they all lived happily ever after.
That's Just In Time For Christmas, and boy oh boy, what a difference a budget makes. This movie was made under the Hallmark Hall Of Fame label, which is billed as a series of higher quality product, both monetarily and creatively, from the rank-and-file Hallmark original productions, and this is most assuredly a better-crafted production than anything else I've seen so far this year. It looks like an actual movie, well-lit and photographed, and I'm certain it was filmed over a longer schedule than your standard production, because all of the performances are well polished, which is a rarity in the world of made-for-TV family entertainment.
And the cast is good. Eloise Mumford (Lindsay) and Michael Stahl-David (Jason) have great chemistry and turn in subtle and believable performances as the romantic leads, and as such I found myself greatly invested in their story and wanted to see their characters work things out and stick together. Christopher Lloyd made me remember that he's actually a pretty strong actor when he's willing to turn it on with his performance as Lindsay's doting grandfather, providing occasional moments of realistic and natural comic relief when he's not busy just being a kind old man who loves his family more than anything else.
And William Shatner. What is there to say about William Shatner? He has a ridiculous-looking goat beard in this movie, and I wonder truly if that was actually his idea. It seems like something he would come up with, a long, stupid-looking beard he could stroke to look contemplative in the movie, just to keep himself interested during his one day of shooting, because there's no way in hell it took the production more than a day to shoot his entire performance, which amounts to a glorified cameo.
At the end of the first act, his character materializes out of a mysterious fog, piloting a festively decorated horse-drawn carriage, he gives Lindsay a quick ride through the woods, then disappears the moment she dismounts and turns away, stranding her in the future. Then the exact same sequence of events occurs again at the climax of the film, only he leaves her back at the moment she disappeared in the present.
There's never any explanation for the character, and he's never identified as an angel or Santa Claus or anything else, so he remains an unsolved mystery at the conclusion of the narrative. And I'm just fine with that, because we don't always need an explanation for everything in movies like this. Sometimes magic is just magic, and we don't need to question it. It doesn't matter what the mysterious coachman really is, and I'm not really bothered by it anyway. William Shatner is just fine in his performance, by the by. He plays his character as a man of few words, doing more with a kind smile and a knowing wink than any ponderous speeches could accomplish. I'm just a fan of William Shatner, and I think he's *gasp* a good actor. His speed's a little different from most, but that's what makes him so memorable/
Just In Time For Christmas is a well-crafted, charming movie, and you should probably see it as soon as humanly possible. Because it's good. I really appreciate the story's final conclusion, letting Lindsay have both the perfect marriage and the dream job, because it's actually a more realistic message to send people than the standard "romance or career" trope so many of these movies fall into. You can have a fulfilling romantic relationship and a satisfying professional career. It doesn't have be an either/or scenario.
Sometimes, we can have it all.
VERDICT: SO GOOD, YOU GUYS
Lindsay is in a quandary. Living with her ailing mother and eccentric grandfather (Christopher Lloyd) in her hometown of Harbourview, Washington, working as a psychology professor at the local university, and dating her high school sweetheart and café owner Jason, Lindsay is happy, but she dreams of more. And the opportunity for more arrives when she receives a tenured job offer from Yale University and a lucrative publishing deal to boot. But Jason has just proposed marriage, and Lindsay is at a crossroads in her life, unsure of which choice would be the path to true happiness: a modest life in Harbourview with Jason, or her dream job at a prestigious university?
Luckily for Lindsay, an enigmatic coachman (William Shatner) arrives and offers her a lift in his mysterious carriage of mystery, and after being transfixed by a curious lightshow in the sky, she finds herself transported three years into the future, having chosen to move to Connecticut to pursue her career as a respected professor and published author. Unfortunately for Lindsay, she remembers none of the events that have occurred in the last three years, and finds herself playing catch-up as she reacquaints herself with her new reality.
Her mother has moved to Sweden to live with her new cardiologist husband, she hasn't visited her hometown since she left for Yale, and Jason has expanded his business, now the proud owner of three popular cafes throughout the state of Washington. And he's about to get married to another woman. So that's a thing. After being shown how things will turn out if she chooses her career over love and finding herself disturbed by the path her life has taken, the enigmatic coachman returns to offer her a ride back into the past... or the present, I suppose.
Back home, does Lindsay choose to stay in Harbourview with Jason, choosing love over her career? No, because that's stupid. She chooses to have it all, relocating to Connecticut with her new husband Jason, who opens a new café in New Haven while she takes the tenured position at Yale that she has dreamed of ever since she was a child, because screw binary choices. And they all lived happily ever after.
That's Just In Time For Christmas, and boy oh boy, what a difference a budget makes. This movie was made under the Hallmark Hall Of Fame label, which is billed as a series of higher quality product, both monetarily and creatively, from the rank-and-file Hallmark original productions, and this is most assuredly a better-crafted production than anything else I've seen so far this year. It looks like an actual movie, well-lit and photographed, and I'm certain it was filmed over a longer schedule than your standard production, because all of the performances are well polished, which is a rarity in the world of made-for-TV family entertainment.
And the cast is good. Eloise Mumford (Lindsay) and Michael Stahl-David (Jason) have great chemistry and turn in subtle and believable performances as the romantic leads, and as such I found myself greatly invested in their story and wanted to see their characters work things out and stick together. Christopher Lloyd made me remember that he's actually a pretty strong actor when he's willing to turn it on with his performance as Lindsay's doting grandfather, providing occasional moments of realistic and natural comic relief when he's not busy just being a kind old man who loves his family more than anything else.
And William Shatner. What is there to say about William Shatner? He has a ridiculous-looking goat beard in this movie, and I wonder truly if that was actually his idea. It seems like something he would come up with, a long, stupid-looking beard he could stroke to look contemplative in the movie, just to keep himself interested during his one day of shooting, because there's no way in hell it took the production more than a day to shoot his entire performance, which amounts to a glorified cameo.
At the end of the first act, his character materializes out of a mysterious fog, piloting a festively decorated horse-drawn carriage, he gives Lindsay a quick ride through the woods, then disappears the moment she dismounts and turns away, stranding her in the future. Then the exact same sequence of events occurs again at the climax of the film, only he leaves her back at the moment she disappeared in the present.
There's never any explanation for the character, and he's never identified as an angel or Santa Claus or anything else, so he remains an unsolved mystery at the conclusion of the narrative. And I'm just fine with that, because we don't always need an explanation for everything in movies like this. Sometimes magic is just magic, and we don't need to question it. It doesn't matter what the mysterious coachman really is, and I'm not really bothered by it anyway. William Shatner is just fine in his performance, by the by. He plays his character as a man of few words, doing more with a kind smile and a knowing wink than any ponderous speeches could accomplish. I'm just a fan of William Shatner, and I think he's *gasp* a good actor. His speed's a little different from most, but that's what makes him so memorable/
Just In Time For Christmas is a well-crafted, charming movie, and you should probably see it as soon as humanly possible. Because it's good. I really appreciate the story's final conclusion, letting Lindsay have both the perfect marriage and the dream job, because it's actually a more realistic message to send people than the standard "romance or career" trope so many of these movies fall into. You can have a fulfilling romantic relationship and a satisfying professional career. It doesn't have be an either/or scenario.
Sometimes, we can have it all.
VERDICT: SO GOOD, YOU GUYS
No comments:
Post a Comment