If I Only Had Schlock-Mas

 

IF I ONLY HAD CHRISTMAS

At Christmas, a cheerful publicist teams with a cynical VP and his eclectic team to help a charity in need.

I thought this was supposed to be a riff on The Wizard Of Oz. I was promised that this movie was going to be a holiday-themed take on the story from The Wizard Of Oz. That's not what If I Only Had Christmas is. This is just a boring fucking movie that spends a few of its ninety-odd minutes winking at its audience with a handful of cutesy "homages" to the classic 1939 film. 

Candace Cameron Bure plays Darcy Gale, a kindly single woman who works at GUMM, a public relations firm in Kansas City. Do you get it? Dorothy Gale was from Kansas. Darcy Gale is from Kansas City. Which is in Missouri. It's also the headquarters of Hallmark, so I guess it's a double homage? Of course the movie didn't film a day in the real Kansas City, instead the production was entirely based in Canada. Darcy travels to Connecticut to work pro bono for a charity called Emerald (do you get it? It's like the Emerald City!) because I guess she has nothing better to do with her December, and she's just such a nice lady. 

The movie begins with a Christmas party at Darcy's house, and her whole family shows up to drink cocoa and eat hearty food and hug each other and just generally be annoying, and yet apparently the rest of the movie takes place over essentially the entire month of December. So what the fuck was up with that Christmas party? It's not like she was having an early Christmas party because she thought she was going to be out of town over the holidays, since her work with Emerald came up after this little shindig. And (SPOILERS) the movie ends with another family Christmas party at Darcy's house. So what's going on, movie? What's going on?! 

Darcy also has an adorable dog named Bobo. Do you get it? Bobo. Like Toto. Because Dorothy had a dog named Toto. Bobo. Toto. Two different dogs with similar names. That's the level of craft we're working with here. 

After Darcy travels to scenic Connecticut, she's introduced to the members of the team she'll be working with to-- hang on. What exactly is Darcy trying to do? Emerald is a charity that benefits underprivileged youths, and it's operated by a company called AI, which I believe stands for Austin, Incorporated, which is headed by William Austin (Warren Christie), who pretends to be the VP of Communications at his own company using the alias Glenn Goodman, and-- shit, what's happening? I'm so in the woods on If I Only Had Christmas. Let me try to get these things straight. Nobody knows what William Austin actually looks like, for some reason, so he moonlights as an employee in his own company like he's starring in his own episode of Undercover Boss. Got it. And his company, AI, operates Emerald, a charity that benefits underprivileged youths. And the charity needs help from a PR firm... because... they need better PR. To raise more money. To help more underprivileged youths. 

But AI's CFO, a cantankerous battle-axe named Winona West (do you get it? Like the Wicked Witch of the West!) hates Darcy and thinks she's an opportunistic little worm who's just trying to make herself look good by helping a charity at Christmastime, despite having absolutely no evidence to support this claim, so she never gives Darcy the benefit of the doubt at any point in the movie and eventually just fades away because her character is ultimately entirely inconsequential to the overall plot, but the movie wanted to shoehorn in one more oblique reference to The Wizard Of Oz and couldn't think of anything better than this completely pointless villain. Why couldn't they be more subtle and name the character Winona Gulch? Were they worried their stupid, stupid audience wouldn't understand the reference? Probably. 

Moving on, the team members Darcy works with to raise awareness for the good work Emerald does in the community are a chipper lady named Jackie Crow, a supposedly cold-hearted Dr. Tinsley, and a cowardly fella named Lyons. I don't know what positions they hold in this corporate structure, and I'm not sure if that's because I simply couldn't be bothered to remember their job titles, or if the movie neglected to mention them at all. But do you understand the references? Do you get it? DO YOU SEE?! Jackie Crow's like the loveable Scarecrow, because she... has a head filled with straw? I don't know. I don't get it. And Dr. Tinsley is curt with Darcy in one scene, almost... heartless, you might say. Like a certain Tin Woodsman, I suppose. Only not really. And Lyons is a coward. So at least that one's on point. 

Some shit happens in Connecticut, none of it really matters, and then Darcy and "Glenn" fall in love, even though they never really act like they're falling in love. We're just led to assume as much because that's what the story tells us is happening. Honestly, the pair never act like they're anything closer than friends. And not really good friends, either. More like work friends, the type who can chit-chat when they bump into each other in the hallway while on their way to a meeting, but they're never going to hang out after hours. And what role does this so-called Glenn fill, Wizard Of Oz-wise? Absolutely none, since nobody was trying to get under Dorothy Gale's gingham skirt in the movie. He's just the love interest. He acts like a disinterested dick toward just about everything he encounters from the beginning of the movie all the way to its conclusion, and he's the male lead. Just a generic handsome dude with absolutely no joy behind his flat, reptilian stare. 

Oh wait, I think he might be the Wizard, since he's "the man behind the curtain", so to speak. Yeah. I guess that's it. The Wizard who wants to fuck Dorothy. I don't know. Maybe the Wizard in that old movie wanted to fuck Dorothy. Come to think of it, he probably did. Fucking pervert. 

Hang on a sec. Glenn... Goodman... Glenn-da... Glinda? The Good(man) Witch of the North? Is that what that's supposed to be? Can that be it? And his real name is William Austin, so... Aus-tin... Oz-tin? Oz?! Is this by design, or am I reaching? I don't know what's real anymore.

Darcy's whole "team" of friendly friends who join her on this quest to raise more money for their charity never register as actual characters in the narrative, by the by. They're just window dressing and nothing more, names and faces and empty spaces. These people are just there whenever Darcy's around, acting quirky and contributing absolutely nothing to the plot, because they don't matter. Only Darcy and Glenn matter, and Glenn matters much less than Darcy, since the movie is really her story. Although Darcy's story is just a vague sketch at best, anyhow. There's seriously nothing to If I Only Had Christmas. It's like an empty gift box under your tree. It may be festively wrapped, but when you open it up and discover there's nothing inside, you're left feeling as hollow as that damned box. 

In the beginning, Darcy likes living in Kansas City, and when the movie ends, she's still living in Kansas City, only now she has a better job since Glenn William has chosen to open a satellite office in town and hire Darcy to run the PR department. That's it. Darcy has a slightly higher paying job and a boyfriend who claims to care about her. This William guy even acts completely checked out when he's hanging out with Darcy's family at the end of the movie. Look at this fucking guy: 

The man does not give a tinker's damn about any of this bullshit happening around him. Couldn't this production have hired an actor who could, say, actually act? I know Warren Christie's been in a lot of things over the years, but I doubt he's ever been good in any of those things. Candy Cams is out there mugging up a storm, making a bunch of silly faces and trying her best to be an affable, charming lead, but she's getting absolutely nothing from her co-star, and it's a fucking chore to watch. This whole damned movie is a chore to watch. 

I don't know what else I'm supposed to say about If I Only Had Christmas, which is a pretty stupid title, now that I think about it. What does that title have to do with the plot of the movie? Absolutely nothing. It's as bland and uninspiring a title as Charming Christmas, another lame excuse for holiday entertainment that still haunts my dreams. But at least that movie had the decency to give me a trio of creepy leering elves in its closing moments to give me the fucking willies. If I Only Had Christmas just haphazardly tossed off a handful of shit-stupid references to a real movie that I wished I'd watched instead this morning. What a pile of garbage. 

Merry Christmas!