Schlock-Mas: Day One

Today's Feature: 'Tis The Season For Love

An out-of-work actress finds romance after returning to her quaint hometown during Christmastime.

When I began 2015's Twenty-Five Days Of Schlock-Mas feature, I briefly mentioned a then-recently premiered holiday delight entitled 'Tis The Season For Love, a movie I refused to watch last year based entirely on the puerile title. Well that was last year, because I just got finished watching the holiday-themed, made-for-television family movie with the scientifically proven dumbest title ever conceived, and now I'm going to tell you all about it, because that's the entire point of this endeavor.

Beth (Sarah Lancaster) is a failed stage actress living on her wealthy and successful friend's spacious couch in New York City. I don't even know if she's a good actress, because the movie never actually shows her, you know, acting. All we know is that she's having a hard time landing that big breakout gig that will make her an international superstar, and her agent has just cut her loose because he's sick of schlepping her dead weight up and down Broadway trying to find her any work. So her pal surprises her with a one-way plane ticket back to her hometown for the holidays, presumably because she's just a nice lady who wants her pal to have a good Christmas for a change, but I think she just wanted to get rid of Beth because she's such a downer and was really cramping her "single vamp on the prowl in the big city" vibe.

Arriving back in her delightful little hometown of Kern (home of The Weekly Kernel, which is apparently a newspaper, and it's only published weekly because not enough happens in this one-horse town to justify a daily rag) after, let's say several years away, she greets her kindly baker mother with that "I'm a horrible failure" aura that makes mommy instinctively slip into caretaker mode, baking her daughter a heaping helping of delicious gingerbread cookies because that's basically all she does in the entire movie. She bakes. And she loves. That's her entire character. She's also plowing the elementary school principal, some bald loser who only owns one suit, but it's all good because he's hung like a mule and read the Kama Sutra once in college.

Thirty seconds after arriving home, she's offered a job teaching drama at the elementary school by the skeevy principal, which is weird because I didn't think elementary schools actually had drama classes. Am I wrong here? That seems like a high school thing to me, but what do I know? I didn't grow up in a nowhere town called Kern. She also reacquaints herself with her old flame Barry (Andrew Francis), who is now happily married with a young daughter, as well as Barry's best pal Dean (Brendan Penny), a hunky fireman who is recently single after his high school sweetheart left him for a younger guy with a bigger bank account. Beth and Dean grow closer together as they team up to help put on the best elementary school Christmas pageant that their picturesque hometown has ever seen, and I think you know where this is going.

If you've already figured out that Beth eventually decides to stay in Kern, taking that teaching job and getting hitched to hunky Dean, then congratulations, because you have a working brain. The entire plot of the film was laid bare like a submissive dog rolling over to expose its vulnerable belly to a more powerful rival within five minutes of the opening titles sequence. Of course there's a third act complication when Beth's ex-agent contacts her to mention how an injury has opened up the role of understudy to the most narcissistic young actress on Broadway (who has never missed a performance) in a new play written by David fucking Mamet, and she drops everything to return to New York for one last chance to follow her childhood dream. Of course, she immediately realizes that it's no longer a dream she wants, thanks to the magical skeleton key that Santa Claus gave her earlier in the movie, so she begs her wealthy friend for another one-way plane ticket back to Korn so she can settle down with hunky Dean and pump out some babies while teaching young children how to yell at each other onstage.

Did I not mention the magical skeleton key? Yeah, there's a magical skeleton key. Santa Claus gave it to Beth in the first act after she wondered aloud whether she made the right choice in leaving her hometown and her cozy little life for a dream of Broadway stardom all those years ago. The skeleton key grants Beth a series of cryptic dreams of a happy life with two loving sons and her hubby Dean as they celebrate the holidays together, and she initially interprets them as a glimpse of a life she could have had, had she chosen to stay in Kern after college. But no, they're actually visions of a potential future, something she learns when she inevitably chooses to remain in her hometown with the man she loves. It's all very heartwarming stuff, let me tell you.

Santa Claus is played in the movie by Garry Chalk, by the way. You may not be familiar with the name, but I assure you that you've seen his face (and heard his voice) before. Take a quick glance at his IMDB profile and marvel at his impressive 362 acting credits. The man keeps busy. He's also a pretty good actor when the mood strikes him, and this small supporting role as jolly St. Nick is a breeze for the guy, who turns on the charm behind a, shall we say, less than ideal fake beard and toupée, leaving quite the impression with only around five minutes of screentime. So yeah, 'Tis The Season Foe Love is another one of those "magical Santa" movies that have become increasingly prominent in Hallmark Channel's line-up, although the advertisements oddly kept that particular plot point well hidden.

Is 'Tis The Season For Love a good movie? Sure, I guess. Most of the actors are decent, and I can't recall any memorably bad performances, which is always a plus. Actors Andrew Francis and Brendan Penny have an excellent rapport, easily selling the illusion of as lifelong friends who are always there to get each other out of a jam. The two actually play brothers in Hallmark's most recent foray into longform programming, the series Chesapeake Shores, and they're quite good in their respective roles. So 'Tis The Season For Love actually served as a dry run of sorts for these two, playing essentially the same roles in this movie as they would later play in Chesapeake Shores, which is a surprisingly well-made program that I very much enjoyed watching over the summer.

But back to the pertinent question. Yes, 'Tis The Season For Love is fine. It's a perfectly middle-of-the-road production from front to back that accomplishes everything it sets out to do and nothing more. A serviceable holiday entertainment. You're not going to dwell on it after you watch it, and you'll likely forget all about the movie within a few days of watching it, but that's basically by design with these particular movies. They do what they set out to do, then they fade away, leaving room for the next inevitable product that will fill that same gap in programming for another two hours. And that's fine. Not every movie is going to change the world. Sometimes all they're made to do is pleasantly occupy a little of your time.

The title is still fucking worthless, however.

VERDICT: NICE