What These Lifetime Movies Should Have Been About

Until they make a holiday celebrating battered women and mysterious kidnappings, Christmas is probably Lifetime’s favorite time of the year. Around November, Lifetime begins to churn out an excess of holiday-themed fair. Ranging from campy melodrama to melodramatic camp, these movies feature low budget sets, horrifying scripts and wooden acting. Just what you want around the holidays!

To honor the network that made a movie called “An Amish Murder” (I’m not kidding, it premieres in January), I decided to take the titles of eight holiday-themed Lifetime Original Movies and try to guess what they might be about, based solely on the title. I’ve also listed Lifetime’s actual plot summary so you can see how close I got. Let’s just say that I don’t think Lifetime will be calling me up for a job anytime soon.

1. A Dad for Christmas

What It Should Be About: Eric is a washed up actor who comes up with a brilliant money-making scheme. He hires himself out as a “dad” for Christmas morning. His holiday schedule is booked as he bounces between the houses of divorcees and single moms. Eric’s got a long list of rules that keep him from getting too attached to the families he visits. At first it’s all fun and games until Eric meets Shelia, a single mom who breaks every rule in his book.

What It’s Actually About: “Matt, who is nineteen, goes to the hospital to see his newborn son, only to discover that his young girlfriend has already made arrangements for a couple to the adopt him. With the adoption imminent and no means to stop it, Matt takes Luke out of the hospital to his grandmother's house.”

(That’s literally the description I pulled from Lifetime’s website. Talk about a boring way to sum up what sounds like a pretty dramatic movie.)

2. Comfort and Joy

What It Should Be About: Two high-class escorts, Comfort and Joy, ply their trade around the holidays. It’s a madcap comedy as the two girls are invited to an important Christmas party where hundreds of their clients are in attendance. Mistaken identities, physical comedy, and holiday hijinks ensue as these two wacky hookers with hearts of gold scramble to keep their true professions a secret.

What It’s Actually About: “An upscale, single, career woman is knocked unconscious in a car accident on Christmas eve and when she wakes up, she's told that she's a married housewife with a husband and two kids. After spending time with her "family," she finds that she likes the loving wife and mother she has become though she has no recollection of how she got there.”

(Any movie that starts with the description “an upscale, single, career woman” is bound to be awful.)

3. A Boyfriend for Christmas

What It Should Be About: A young girl named Caley finally raises the money to complete her gender reassignment surgery. She breaks the news to her conservative family on Christmas Eve and is kicked out of the house just before the egg nog is served. Caley finds a new friend in Mia, a street artist also spending Christmas Eve alone. A tentative romance blossoms between the two outcasts and Mia takes Caley to the hospital for her procedure. With her surgery complete Caley (now Carl) finally becomes what she always wanted to be- a boyfriend for Christmas.

What It’s Actually About: “Holly professes that she doesn’t believe in Santa Claus since she can’t meet the man of her dreams. When Santa sets her up with Ryan, he seems perfect until it is revealed that he has kept some secrets from her. Ultimately, Holly must choose between her bland boyfriend Ted and Ryan.”

(Don’t tell me you wouldn’t rather watch my version.)

4. Christmas in Paradise

What It Should Be About: The title leans heavily on irony as there’s nothing perfect about this Christmas vacation. The Barnes family are shipwrecked on a deserted island and spend the holidays trying to survive. Just as they settle into their new lives, mysterious noises emerge from the jungle. It soon becomes clear that there’s something else out there. The entire clan is killed  off one by one, leaving little Jimmy to fend for himself against a mysterious monster on Christmas Day.

What It’s Actually About: “Two families looking to escape bad holiday memories take a vacation to an exotic Caribbean island over Christmas. Given all they have in common, the parents and kids develop bonds over the course of their stay. When an unexpected visitor from the past appears and threatens their tentative romance, what promised to be a happy Christmas filled with fresh hope and new relationships turns complicated. Eventually, the two families come back together in love, friendship and filled with the Christmas spirit.” 

(Does someone get paid to write these things?)

5. Holiday Baggage

What It Should Be About: Two flight attendants, Crystal and Carmen, cook up a crazy scheme to rob from the rich and give to the poor. It’s a sort of Robin-Hood-in-the-skies story as the attendants steal the baggage of greedy businessmen and give it away to needy families. Everything’s going according to plan until Crystal falls in love with the very businessman she is supposed to be stealing from.

What It’s Actually About: “A marriage and family who rediscovers the meaning of Christmas when pediatrician by day, single mom by night, Sarah invites her estranged pilot husband, Pete, back to their suburban home for the holidays on one condition--he must reconcile with their daughters before she agrees to finalize their trial separation with divorce.” 

(I hope her business cards read “pediatrician by day, single mom by night.”)

6. Christmas Crash

What It Should Be About: A sequel to the 2004 Oscar winning film Crash, this movie takes a hard look at the issues of race and class that plague our society. But this time it’s set at Christmas! Ludacris is the only returning star from the original film and he turns in a stunning performance as a mall Santa dealing with prejudice.

What It’s Actually About: “A couple on the brink of divorce crashes their private plane into the woods and are presumed dead. Their children do not give up hope and find them after days go by. We learn that one of his business partners was responsible for the crash. Their near death adventure reminds them of how much they still love each other.”

(Wow, that was way darker than I expected.)

7. Crazy for Christmas

What It Should Be About: After suffering with mental instability for years, Angel’s family commits her to a psychiatric hospital on Christmas Eve. Angel is reluctant to join group therapy at first until a no-nonsense nurse (a surprise cameo by Rob Lowe) changes her mind. In therapy, Angel meets a whole host of characters who teach her that there’s no shame in being crazy for Christmas.

What It’s Actually About: “Shannon is stuck working on Christmas Eve, driving around an eccentric, wealthy older man who keeps giving away his money. The single mom would rather be home with her son, but it will turn out to be one of the craziest and most incredible nights of her life -- this chauffeur and her passenger will change each other's lives in ways you could never imagine”

(I actually kind of want to watch this one.)

8. Holiday Switch

What It Should Be About: A Jewish family and a Christian family pull a freaky Friday and learn a little about each other’s culture in the process. Henry makes a wish on a Christmas tree, just as Abraham wishes on the menorah and now nothing will ever be the same again. The Johnsons and the Goldbergs have to figure out the true meaning of Christmas and Hanukkah in order to switch back in time for New Years.

What It’s Actually About: “A week before Christmas, Paula finds herself struggling with bills and life with her blue-collar husband Gary and her two daughters. When Nick, her high school boyfriend returns to town, a wealthy art gallery owner, Paula wonders if she made the wrong decision when she took the wrong date to the prom. What would her life have been like if she stayed with Nick?”

(At least mine has the potential to be fun and educational.)

That’s it for this year folks! Thanks for following along on my blogging adventures. If you like what you read, please pass the blog along to your friends. (It’ll be your Christmas gift to me.) See ya in 2013!

Top 5 Favorite Christmas Romances

I start getting excited for Christmas around July and even though I pretend to be annoyed, I secretly love when the radio starts playing Christmas music the day after Halloween. Sure it’s just an excuse for rampant consumerism, but I love the holidays. I come from a large family with lots of traditions. (We actually gather around the piano on Christmas Eve and sing carols, how cute is that?) One of our traditions is to screen our favorite Christmas movies in the weeks leading up to the big day. It just doesn’t quite feel like Christmas until I’ve seen Will Ferrell in a giant elf costume or watched a claymation reindeer befriend a yeti. It’s no surprise that most (if not all) Christmas movies feature romance. After all Christmas is a time rife with warm feelings, mistletoe, and a whole lot of spiked egg nog. In honor of this most wonderful time of the year, I thought I’d count down my Top 5 Favorite, Must-See, It’s-Not-Christmas-Until-I’ve-Watched-These, Romances.

5. Meet Me in St. Louis. Chalk this one up to geographical bias (I’m from St. Louis), but this 1944 Judy Garland film never fails to make me laugh and warm my heart a bit. The film documents a year in the life of a turn-of-the-century family. In musical form no less! Christmas is just one small portion of the movie, but I have to give this film major props for giving us Garland’s incomparable rendition of Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas. It’s one of the most beautiful (and secretly devastating) Christmas songs of all time.

4. White Christmas. Growing up, this was my all time favorite Christmas movie. It’s the epitome of the classic Hollywood musical: the drama is low key (let’s put on a show to save an old man’s business!), the songs are great (I would listen to Bing Crosby sing the phonebook) and the choreography is wonderfully energetic. The movie’s got a quirky sense of humor, the costumes are to-die-for and everyone just seems like they’re having so much fun hanging out together. Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney and Vera Ellen costar alongside Bing and we’ve got not one, but two charming romances to follow.

3. The Holiday. It may look like a generic modern day rom com about overworked, crazy female protagonists, but it’s not. At least, it’s not just that. Kate Winslet and Cameron Diaz switch houses for the holiday season and manage to find love in the process. Old Hollywood, Jude Law, a charming Jack Black and adorable British children all work their way into the plot. It’s surprisingly delightful and much better than most of the big budget rom coms released around the holiday season.

2. It’s a Wonderful Life. People remember this movie for George Bailey’s angel intervention, but most of the film is actually a coming-of-age story about one small town man with big dreams. Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed are simply adorable as the central couple who grow from young sweethearts to doting parents. The finale is melodramatic, but most of the film is actually a sort of low key character piece about a charming small town and the people who populate it.

1. Love Actually. Is anyone surprised? Love Actually is less than ten years old, but it’s become a holiday classic and my number one must-watch Christmas romance. While the abundance of actors might overwhelm a lesser movie (take a look at Valentine’s Day or New Year’s Eve), Love Actually brilliantly balances it’s plethora of storylines to depict the highs, lows, and in-betweens of the holiday season. It’s optimistic without being schmaltzy and sentimental without losing it’s comic edge. (I could watch this scene all day.) To me, it’s the perfect Christmas movie and one of the best rom coms of the last few decades.

I'll be trying to post reviews of these five films (and other holiday classics) leading up to the big day so if you have any Christmas-themed recommendations, please let me know in the comments below!

Review

SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK

Released: 2012
Director: David O. Russell
Starring: Jennifer Lawrence & Bradley Cooper

Grade: A

  

When you meet someone for the first time you probably run through a checklist of labels which help you conceptualize that person: male or female, old or young, gay or straight, married or single. Society seems to be creating more and more specific labels, words to identify people by their food habits, religious sects, age group, and ethnicity. (You can now introduce yourself as a panethnic, Protestant, pescatarian preteen.) Particularly in the field of mental health, labels (in the form of diagnoses) are constantly being refined. Centuries ago people were defined as either sane or crazy. As scientists learned more about the brain and the field of psychology rose to prominence, a whole arrange of conditions between sane and crazy emerged: ADHD, bipolar disorder, manic depression, OCD, dementia, Aspergers. These labels are undoubtedly a good thing. They help doctors and patients identify and treat conditions that in the past would have been written off as untreatable mental instability. But you also run into the danger of being defined solely by a label. “My gay friend Steve.” “My Jewish friend, Anna.” “Alan, the one with bipolar disorder.”

Silver Linings Playbook examines labels: the ones that are diagnosed clinically, the ones we give ourselves, and the ones others give to us. The film follows Patrick (Bradley Cooper) a former high school sub who has just finished an eight month stint in a mental institution after brutally assaulting the man he caught having an affair with his wife. Released on a legal technicality, Patrick returns to his Philadelphia home to live with his parents Dolores (Jacki Weaver) and Pat Sr. (Robert De Niro). Patrick is determined to get in shape and win back his wife, a woman currently holding a restraining order against him. He’s got good days and bad, sometimes functioning fairly well in society, other times driving himself to hysterics over a song.

Patrick meets his equal in Tiffany (Jennifer Lawrence) a young woman with her own set of labels. She’s the widow of a former cop, she’s a “whore” who channeled her grief into sexual energy, and she’s the “screw-up” of the family compared to her successful older sister. Like Patrick, she’s been on every antidepressant under the sun. She too lacks a filter and projects an edgy, forceful persona that keeps her one step removed from those around her. Tiffany agrees to help Patrick get in touch with his ex-wife if he agrees to partner with her for a big dance contest. It’s a set-up that feels less contrived onscreen than it does on paper, and it works because of the natural chemistry between Cooper and Lawrence. They are both tentative yet aggressive, scaring people off even as they yearn for companionship. Perhaps because they are the two most heavily labeled people, they are able to see past the other's labels.

The film examines the impact a label can have on whether we view someone as sane or crazy. Pat Sr. makes his money betting on sports games. He folds handkerchiefs, carefully places remote controls in specific locations, and counts envelopes to send along good luck to his Philadelphia Eagles. While the younger Patrick’s stint at the institute has permanently labeled him as “crazy,” Pat Sr.’s condition goes largely unlabeled. To some he's exhibiting symptoms of OCD, to others he's expressing the normal quirks of a sports fan. Then there’s Patrick’s seemingly stable neighbor who admits to thrashing around to Metallica in his garage when he feels upset. After all, he reasons, “You can’t be happy all the time.”

That’s a lesson Patrick is unwilling to take to heart. He’s determined that with a little effort and self-discipline, he can make his life perfect. (The film’s title comes from Patrick’s positive-thinking, “silver linings” philosophy.) He makes mistakes and has unexpected outbursts, but he’s sure that if he can just explain himself on paper, write out what he meant to do, things will be okay. It’s a feeling I’ve had many times, and Patrick’s determination to get in touch with his wife and explain everything to her, though obsessive on the outside, probably isn’t too far off from desires we’ve all had. But Patrick’s history of institutionalization will forever color people’s perception of him. His behavior is labeled as unstable, yet my similar behavior may not be.

For all of it’s heavy subject matter, Silver Linings Playbook remains surprisingly enjoyable throughout. It’s a sardonic comedy that can flip on a dime to something much weightier. While it’s got some of the contrivances of a rom com, it thankfully exceeds the genre’s limitations. The laughs come quickly and often until suddenly they stop, brought to a screeching halt by an offhanded comment. And that perhaps is the best representation of Patrick’s struggle with controlling his aggression. He’s fine until he’s not. It’s a masterful understanding of tone and director/writer David O. Russell has crafted a film that takes itself seriously without losing its sense of fun. Cooper and Lawrence are both fantastic, playing against type and seeming to have a blast doing so. While I expected nothing less from the always-terrific Lawrence, Cooper proves here that he’s more than just a sculpted face and chiseled abs.

Russell doesn’t come to any grand conclusions about the dangers of labeling, but I’m not sure he needs to. This isn’t a film about mental health as a whole; it’s a film about one man and how he deals with his own issues. We label things to understand them, to give us a frame of reference. There’s not a way we can exist without labeling the world around us, and the best we can do is try to remember that the words we use to describe something are only the tip of the iceberg. And that’s where Silver Linings Playbook really shines. It’s a story that presents characters in a way that both embraces their labels and looks beneath them.

Reality factor: As he proved in The Fighter, director David O Russell has a great eye for capturing the family unit of the working class. Everything from the wallpaper to the food (crabby snacks and homemades) feels grounded in the grit and grease of real life.  [4 out of 5]

Eye-candy factor: Bradley Cooper is dressed in baggy sweatpants and trash bags for most of the film, which makes his dance contest ensemble seem that much more dapper. [4 out of 5]

Aww factor: The film’s finale may be too sentimental for some, but I thought it was a well earned and heartfelt moment that didn’t stray too far into fantasy. [4 out of 5]