It's time for the annual flood of Christmas romcoms. They all have about the same plot: A woman with an absurdly high-profile career in the Big City is dragged kicking and screaming to a small town, where she helps save or win something and falls in love with an absurdly hot local. Is there a run of women moving to small towns every January?
I reviewed Pierson's previous movie, The Wrong Paris, but deleted the post due to low pageviews.
Lengthy Prologue: An animated Kate (former Clueless girl Alicia Silverstone) tells us that 20 years ago, she graduated from college and got a job at an amazing architectural firm in the Big City (hey, that was my dream, too, before I was sidelined by the Evangelical subculture, which said that college was only for future ministers).
She was going to change the world!
But then Kate met med student Everett (Oliver Hudson, left and below, best known for Scream Queens and for being Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell's kid). She gave up her career and followed him to the small town of Winterlight, Vermont, to become a homemaker.
Wait --the woman usually gives up the Big City for a small town, her high-pressure job for the infinite happiness of being a housewife, at the end of the Christmas romcom, not at the beginning.
20 years later, the kids have grown up, and Kate and Everett have nothing to say to each other, so they have decided on an amicable divorce, one where they lead separate lives but stay friends.
Scene 1: Kate and Everett in a coffee shop called Bread Zeppelin, har har, talking to the standard Black Friend -- the one who tells the romcom heroine, "Girl, forget your absurdly high profile job and find yourself a man!"
In this case she happens to be the mayor of Wintergreen (or whatever the name is), and she's advising Kate to keep her man: "Don't divorce! You're making a big mistake!"
The aging hippie couple who own the coffee shop agree: "True love is forever! No one in a small town has ever gotten a divorce!"
"No problem, I'm moving away anyhow. I'm taking an absurdly high-profile job in the Big City."
"But small towns bring infinite happiness. You'll be lost and miserable in the Big City."
Scene 2: Next Kate goes to her job -- selling something in a gigantic mansion-turned-store called the Mothership. Geez, that thing is bigger than Harrad's
Her assistant April (former Sabrina the Teenage Witch Melissa Joan Hart) begs her to reconsider -- infinite happiness as a small town housewife, dreary depression in the Big City, and so on, and then asks about the mechanics of spending Christmas with an ex-husband.
"We're going to do all of the standard traditions as a family, as usual. We won't tell anyone that we're separated until after Christmas, not even the kids."
Suddenly Everett's Dads, an elderly mixed-race gay couple, appear with a sweet potato pie.
"Sorry, I already made one," Kate snarks.
They are played by Derek McGrath( Jerry O'Connell's mentor on My Secret Identity), and Geoffrey Owens (Super-hunk Elvin on The Cosby Show). Both are apparently straight in real life. It's nice to have some elderly gay guys on screen for a change, but this means there will be no other gay characters -- the rule is, only one, or one couple.
Next to arrive is Kate's son Gabe, a high school senior currently writing college application essays. He is played by Wilder Brooks Hudson, Oliver Hudson's kid in his screen debut (nepotism is real).
Wilder is 18 years old, shirtless a lot on his Instagram, presumably gay because he's shirtless a lot with other guys, although there are a lot of fawning articles about Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell's grandson "having a girlfriend!!!!" And contrary to what you may expect, he is not named after famous directors Billy Wilder and James Brooks.
Are we meeting an awful lot of people really fast?
Wait -- all of Kate's Christmas guests are arriving, and bringing food. I think the Mothership is her house, not a palace turned into a store. Why did they talk about selling things out of it?
Pierson Fode putting out a fire in his underwear after the break.