ICE SCULPTURE CHRISTMAS
An aspiring chef finds romance during Christmastime while preparing for an ice-sculpting competition.
Do you know anything about ice sculptures? Would you care to know anything about ice sculptures? Everything I know about ice sculptures I learned from watching Edward Scissorhands, which is to say I know absolutely nothing about ice sculptures. Ice Sculpture Christmas seems to know a thing or two about ice sculptures, which is good, because I've always wanted to learn about ice sculptures, and what better way to learn about ice sculptures than from a made-for-television holiday-themed romance on the Hallmark Channel in the middle of the afternoon?
Maybe Wikipedia...
Ice Sculpture Christmas is about a young woman who has recently graduated from culinary school taking a job under a world-class chef at the... department store, or maybe office building... This is embarrassing. I don't know exactly where this woman works. There's a full kitchen, and it seems to be located in the same building as a financial brokerage firm, but I'm not sure if the firm owns the whole building, because the place looks a lot like a mall to me, but I don't think it's really a mall. The young woman's father works at the... office building (?) in some capacity year-round, I must assume, and has been gainfully employed at this place for a very long time, but the movie never bothered to tell me exactly what he was meant to do at his place of employment. We only ever see him decorating the building for the Christmas season, which is a pretty big deal for everyone, it seems. People just love this guy's knack for hanging tinsel.
I suppose it doesn't really matter. The details of this man's life are quite inconsequential. His daughter is the star of the show, so I should probably be talking about her. Her name is Kelly, or Callie, or maybe Kali, but she's played by Rachel Boston, so I'm just going to call her Rachel Boston. Rachel Boston is, as the synopsis above implies, an aspiring chef, and takes a job as a dishwasher at her daddy's office building (I'm just going to call it an office building to make things easier) for the opportunity to work under world-class chef Brenda Strong, AKA the lady who killed herself in the pilot episode of Desperate Housewives then narrated every subsequent episode from beyond the grave, hoping to work her way up the ladder and help pay off her abundant student loans.
She also loves ice sculptures, because apparently that's something many culinary academies teach for various reasons, as she is keen to remind several people in the film. This sounded like bullshit to me, so I looked it up, and lo and behold, it's absolutely true. That's just fascinating, isn't it? Rachel Boston just loves busting out her toolkit and fucking up some virgin ice in her spacious two-car garage to unwind on a Saturday night, that is when she's not busy making delicious from-scratch butternut squash soup for her poor old father, who is seemingly incapable of cooking for himself. I guess they live together, because she doesn't seem to have a place of her own, and I guess she's trying to save some money with the new job, so that makes sense.
Wait, I didn't mention the film's prologue. Our movie begins maybe 15 years in the past, with a young Rachel Boston (played by a little kid, because even though Rachel Boston is a rather youthful-looking 32 years old, even she isn't talented enough to play herself at age 10) attending the annual ice sculpture competition at her father's office with both of her parents. The young lady meets David, the son of the office manager, or firm president (is that how that works?) or king of finance, or whatever. The two children begin talking to each other in a manner unlike any children in the real world. This is that bizarre issue that routinely pops up in movies of all stripes, with the kids talking like little adults rather than actual kids, which is just creepy and off-putting.
I don't know if some writers do this because they're trying to illustrate that their characters are wise beyond their years, or maybe they just don't know how to write realistic children in their scripts. You want to see a movie with a realistically written child character? Watch The Babadook. Then get a vasectomy, dudes, because you're better off without these little monsters trying to crush your soul in their tiny, germ-ridden hands. They exist to replace you. That's just science.
Back in the present day, Rachel Boston's mother is dead, her father is a lonely sumbitch, and she's washing dishes for a living. So everything's coming up roses for this young go-getter. She reacquaints herself with David, now all grown up and making million-dollar deals left and right like a bad motherfucker, but he's empty inside because he has yet to know the tender embrace of true love. He works for his hardnosed daddy at the firm (?), and he's just not happy. He yearns for something more, something beyond spreadsheets and the bottom line. Watching his bank account get swole like Mr. Creosote at an all-you-can-eat buffet isn't getting his pecker hard anymore. Then he gets body-checked by Rachel Boston in a hallway and gets in the lovin' groove.
He signs his crush up for the annual ice-sculpture competition at the office, much to her chagrin, because this puts her in direct competition with Iron Chef Brenda Strong, who has won the big contest three years running. Such drama! And she's catching hell left and right at work from Chef Brenda's right-hand woman, Assistant Chef Jen, who sees Rachel Boston as a threat to her quest for ultimate office kitchen superiority. Cat fights galore, ladies and gentlemen!
Seriously, Assistant Chef Jen is a complete cartoon, just a sneering villain that wouldn't feel out of place in an old-timey melodrama, tying a young damsel to the railroad tracks while twirling her stylish moustache in a smarmy manner. It's incredibly disappointing to see, especially considering the film's script manages to humanize every other primary character in the story, making them feel like well-rounded characters and not cardboard cutouts.
I was pleasantly surprised with the manner in which most of the film's characters are handled. David's confidant is a brassy dame called Brooke, and she's never presented as anything more than a good and loyal friend for our male lead, never once displaying a hint of jealousy when she sees her pal's obvious attraction to the new dishwasher/ice sculptress, actively encouraging him to follow his heart when he finds himself at an impasse, professionally and romantically.
And David's father, despite his rocky exterior, is revealed to be a man who cares deeply for his son and wants only for him to find happiness in his life, even if that happiness takes him away from the firm. Even Chef Brenda Strong avoids the traditional villainous role in the story, acting more as a kind-hearted mentor to Rachel Boston than an egomaniacal enfant terrible. She's patient and caring, staying behind after hours to help Rachel Boston wash a mountain of dishes after a particularly busy workday. She even engages in a tentative romance with Rachel's father, which is subtle and even touching.
This is why I am so disappointed with the one-dimensional caricature that is Assistant Chef Jen. She almost feels like a corporate mandate made manifest, shoehorned into an existing script in order to provide unnecessary drama in a story that really didn't need anything of the sort. Ice Sculpture Christmas is a charming and even heart-warming little confection of a movie that is only bogged down by this terribly-written character.
Do you want to know what else happens in the movie? David teams up with Rachel Boston to help win the ice sculpture competition, taking numerous late-night ice sculpture lessons in Rachel's spacious two-car garage, they fall in love, David helps Rachel's father realize his late wife's dream of founding a charitable organization that provides groceries to families in need, leaving his old man's firm to head up the new non-profit called "Annie's Angels", Jen gets fired, Rachel gets Jen's job, she and David win the ice sculpture competition, and they all lived happily ever after, except for Jen, who probably committed suicide shortly after Chef Brenda gave the harpy her walking papers.
Ice Sculpture Christmas is a fine way to waste a lazy holiday season afternoon. And that's all I have to say about that.
VERDICT: NICE
Do you know anything about ice sculptures? Would you care to know anything about ice sculptures? Everything I know about ice sculptures I learned from watching Edward Scissorhands, which is to say I know absolutely nothing about ice sculptures. Ice Sculpture Christmas seems to know a thing or two about ice sculptures, which is good, because I've always wanted to learn about ice sculptures, and what better way to learn about ice sculptures than from a made-for-television holiday-themed romance on the Hallmark Channel in the middle of the afternoon?
Maybe Wikipedia...
Ice Sculpture Christmas is about a young woman who has recently graduated from culinary school taking a job under a world-class chef at the... department store, or maybe office building... This is embarrassing. I don't know exactly where this woman works. There's a full kitchen, and it seems to be located in the same building as a financial brokerage firm, but I'm not sure if the firm owns the whole building, because the place looks a lot like a mall to me, but I don't think it's really a mall. The young woman's father works at the... office building (?) in some capacity year-round, I must assume, and has been gainfully employed at this place for a very long time, but the movie never bothered to tell me exactly what he was meant to do at his place of employment. We only ever see him decorating the building for the Christmas season, which is a pretty big deal for everyone, it seems. People just love this guy's knack for hanging tinsel.
I suppose it doesn't really matter. The details of this man's life are quite inconsequential. His daughter is the star of the show, so I should probably be talking about her. Her name is Kelly, or Callie, or maybe Kali, but she's played by Rachel Boston, so I'm just going to call her Rachel Boston. Rachel Boston is, as the synopsis above implies, an aspiring chef, and takes a job as a dishwasher at her daddy's office building (I'm just going to call it an office building to make things easier) for the opportunity to work under world-class chef Brenda Strong, AKA the lady who killed herself in the pilot episode of Desperate Housewives then narrated every subsequent episode from beyond the grave, hoping to work her way up the ladder and help pay off her abundant student loans.
She also loves ice sculptures, because apparently that's something many culinary academies teach for various reasons, as she is keen to remind several people in the film. This sounded like bullshit to me, so I looked it up, and lo and behold, it's absolutely true. That's just fascinating, isn't it? Rachel Boston just loves busting out her toolkit and fucking up some virgin ice in her spacious two-car garage to unwind on a Saturday night, that is when she's not busy making delicious from-scratch butternut squash soup for her poor old father, who is seemingly incapable of cooking for himself. I guess they live together, because she doesn't seem to have a place of her own, and I guess she's trying to save some money with the new job, so that makes sense.
Wait, I didn't mention the film's prologue. Our movie begins maybe 15 years in the past, with a young Rachel Boston (played by a little kid, because even though Rachel Boston is a rather youthful-looking 32 years old, even she isn't talented enough to play herself at age 10) attending the annual ice sculpture competition at her father's office with both of her parents. The young lady meets David, the son of the office manager, or firm president (is that how that works?) or king of finance, or whatever. The two children begin talking to each other in a manner unlike any children in the real world. This is that bizarre issue that routinely pops up in movies of all stripes, with the kids talking like little adults rather than actual kids, which is just creepy and off-putting.
I don't know if some writers do this because they're trying to illustrate that their characters are wise beyond their years, or maybe they just don't know how to write realistic children in their scripts. You want to see a movie with a realistically written child character? Watch The Babadook. Then get a vasectomy, dudes, because you're better off without these little monsters trying to crush your soul in their tiny, germ-ridden hands. They exist to replace you. That's just science.
Back in the present day, Rachel Boston's mother is dead, her father is a lonely sumbitch, and she's washing dishes for a living. So everything's coming up roses for this young go-getter. She reacquaints herself with David, now all grown up and making million-dollar deals left and right like a bad motherfucker, but he's empty inside because he has yet to know the tender embrace of true love. He works for his hardnosed daddy at the firm (?), and he's just not happy. He yearns for something more, something beyond spreadsheets and the bottom line. Watching his bank account get swole like Mr. Creosote at an all-you-can-eat buffet isn't getting his pecker hard anymore. Then he gets body-checked by Rachel Boston in a hallway and gets in the lovin' groove.
He signs his crush up for the annual ice-sculpture competition at the office, much to her chagrin, because this puts her in direct competition with Iron Chef Brenda Strong, who has won the big contest three years running. Such drama! And she's catching hell left and right at work from Chef Brenda's right-hand woman, Assistant Chef Jen, who sees Rachel Boston as a threat to her quest for ultimate office kitchen superiority. Cat fights galore, ladies and gentlemen!
Seriously, Assistant Chef Jen is a complete cartoon, just a sneering villain that wouldn't feel out of place in an old-timey melodrama, tying a young damsel to the railroad tracks while twirling her stylish moustache in a smarmy manner. It's incredibly disappointing to see, especially considering the film's script manages to humanize every other primary character in the story, making them feel like well-rounded characters and not cardboard cutouts.
I was pleasantly surprised with the manner in which most of the film's characters are handled. David's confidant is a brassy dame called Brooke, and she's never presented as anything more than a good and loyal friend for our male lead, never once displaying a hint of jealousy when she sees her pal's obvious attraction to the new dishwasher/ice sculptress, actively encouraging him to follow his heart when he finds himself at an impasse, professionally and romantically.
And David's father, despite his rocky exterior, is revealed to be a man who cares deeply for his son and wants only for him to find happiness in his life, even if that happiness takes him away from the firm. Even Chef Brenda Strong avoids the traditional villainous role in the story, acting more as a kind-hearted mentor to Rachel Boston than an egomaniacal enfant terrible. She's patient and caring, staying behind after hours to help Rachel Boston wash a mountain of dishes after a particularly busy workday. She even engages in a tentative romance with Rachel's father, which is subtle and even touching.
This is why I am so disappointed with the one-dimensional caricature that is Assistant Chef Jen. She almost feels like a corporate mandate made manifest, shoehorned into an existing script in order to provide unnecessary drama in a story that really didn't need anything of the sort. Ice Sculpture Christmas is a charming and even heart-warming little confection of a movie that is only bogged down by this terribly-written character.
Do you want to know what else happens in the movie? David teams up with Rachel Boston to help win the ice sculpture competition, taking numerous late-night ice sculpture lessons in Rachel's spacious two-car garage, they fall in love, David helps Rachel's father realize his late wife's dream of founding a charitable organization that provides groceries to families in need, leaving his old man's firm to head up the new non-profit called "Annie's Angels", Jen gets fired, Rachel gets Jen's job, she and David win the ice sculpture competition, and they all lived happily ever after, except for Jen, who probably committed suicide shortly after Chef Brenda gave the harpy her walking papers.
Ice Sculpture Christmas is a fine way to waste a lazy holiday season afternoon. And that's all I have to say about that.
VERDICT: NICE
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