Category: 2010s

This film quickly became one of my regular Christmas watches after the first time I saw it a number of years ago. The film centers around Timothy Vahle as the manager of a Native American ski resort who is expecting a secret visit from a travel critic. At the same time, his father’s pen-pal is paying a surprise visit to the resort. The production values are thoroughly of the Hallmark/Lifetime level of quality, but the hijinks of the supporting cast of characters, including a vegetarian chef played by Graham Greene and a romance novel obsessed desk clerk, makes it all light and interesting.   

This film is so predictable, you could close your eyes and still know where it’s going to go. Nick Frost was formerly a teen salsa dancer who hung up his dancing shoes after being bullied. Enter sexy new boss Rashida Jones who just happens to love salsa, so no surprise, Nick is soon searching out Ian McShane, his former dance instructor. Chris O’Dowd adds conflict as an unfunny, obnoxious, misogynistic co-worker who also has his eyes on Jones. You don’t even need a beginners’ dance class to dance along to the plot. I do wish when movies show a Big Competition finale that they wouldn’t push the audience into trying to believe that the actors are at the same skill level as the all decked-out professional competitors. Just make it a group with equal skill, we’ll still cheer along, I swear. 

I’m still craving for a decent romantic comedy to watch, because this wasn’t it. Chris Messina is a silver-painted, street performer whose girlfriend has recently broken up with him. Jenna Fischer is a temp worker who gets fired from that gig for not being personable enough. They have a couple of random meet-ups before they both take jobs at the zoo and strike up a friendship. Half of the movie these two come across as so deeply unhappy they don’t even realize they’re depressed, then suddenly Messina falls into a character he’s played dozens of times before and is dating Pam Beesly. She manages to fall into a job that there’s no reason to believe she’s seriously underqualified for. Or maybe she is, because there’s almost no background to either of these characters except that they don’t want the life that her sister and brother-in-law want to push her into. There’s also Topher Grace with awful long hair being an awful egocentric writer who Fischer is forced to date, his only reason for existing seeming to be that you can do worse than dating a street performer Chris Messina. 

I think this is supposed to be a parody of romantic comedies. Unfortunately a successful parody isn’t made by just laying out the tropes and staring at them. Amy Poehler is a candy store owner; Paul Rudd works for a candy conglomerate looking to put her out of business. Yes, it’s essentially the plot of You’ve Got Mail and just that is supposed to be funny, I guess. There are actually a few unexpected funny moments and other slightly chuckle worthy ones, but it takes a long time to get there. The movie is filled with comedic actors in small and larger parts, including a number of members of The States. It’s unfortunate that none of them asked if any of it was actually funny, amusing, or even entertaining in any way. It’s as if the parody was that they were even pretending to be in a comedy at all.

The three barely connected stories here were drawn from two separate short story collections. The first has Laura Dern as the lawyer for Jared Harris, a man who was injured on the job and unfortunately agreed to much less money than he deserved. The second focuses on Michelle Williams and her husband, who was having an affair with Laura Dern’s character in the first story. They are building a dream weekend home and convince dementia sufferer Rene Auberjonois to give/sell them sandstone he has stored on his land. The third involves two women, Kristen Stewart as a lawyer teaching an adult education class that lonely ranch hand Lily Gladstone stumbles upon. I’m not sure the decision on making them into one work here. One unifying theme does seem to be how women are often reached out to by lonely people for reassurance and connection, though in the last segment the roles were somewhat switched in that the main character was alone and looking for the connection.