Holiday High School Reunion [also known as Christmas Crush] (Spoilers)

If the television show Glee and the movie Mean Girls had an illegitimate love child around Christmas, I think it would look something like Holiday High School Reunion.  Rachel Boston plays Georgia, an assistant (or maybe an assistant of an assistant) for a fashion designer.  Georgia is home for the holidays at the same time her 10 year high school reunion is being held.  While Georgia has a great smile and bubbly personality, it isn’t long before we realize that she’s also a bit of a liar, self-absorbed, insecure, aloof and not very perceptive.  So yeah, exactly the kind of girl everyone roots for.  Georgia is part of a special social group of 4 girls called the Plastics . . . errrr . . . Glee Club.  Glee Club, despite being out of school for a decade, still consider themselves an active club because they hold votes, hang out together, do routines at reunions, etc.

Joining Georgia on this holiday adventure is her high school buddy Ben, played by Jonathan Bennett.  These holiday movies usually involve a romance but it took me a while to realize Ben was the other part of this romantic duo.  And I say 'holiday movie' in the widest sense of the term because the only thing remotely Christmas related in this film are the decorations found in the high school where the reunion takes place.  This is 99% reunion movie with some Christmas decorations and Christmas songs thrown in.   You could have done this same script with Arbor Day as the holiday theme and it wouldn’t change anything.  The issue I had with the character of Ben is that for the first third or half of the movie I thought he was gay.  I thought it was Georgia’s gay bestie, Ben.  Anyways, Ben and Georgia were soooo close in school they were virtually inseparable.  Then after graduation they become VERY separable as Ben runs to Europe and isn’t seen again by Georgia for 10 years????  Mmmm-kay . . . interesting.

This movie had a lot of WTF moments.  Someone could probably write a thesis dissertation just on the plot-holes this movie had.  By the way, are there any High School reunions actually held around Christmas?  Isn’t that kind of a busy time of year for everyone?  And why are there school faculty at the Reunion, isn’t that event run by the student officers of that graduating class?  Do they really need teacher chaperones at this age?   This must have been some kind of Leper school for the beautiful people because I swear to God I don’t think a single person brought a date or spouse yet there wasn’t an unattractive ex-student in the crowd.  It’s basically just a bunch of ex-students getting drunk and hooking up.  Hell, Georgia’s Glee club group looked like a gang of supermodels.  Rachel Boston is cute but she isn’t the most attractive actress in Hollywood so surrounding her with super hot cast members makes dialog like “You were the most beautiful girl in school.” seem utterly ridiculous or, at least, insincere.  It makes viewers want to jump up and shout at the screen, "Seriously, are you freaking blind?!?!"  Even a nominally attractive girl transferring into this school would be as out of place as a midget joining the LA Lakers!

So let’s get to the good stuff from the movie.  There . . . we’re done.  So now lets talk about the plot.  Halfway through the movie I couldn’t tell if this was supposed to be a musical or just a movie with a lot of unnecessary musical and dance acts interspersed within the main plot.  The Glee Club girls turn out to be a bunch of backstabbing, attention seeking, petty ex-cheerleaders (way to switch up that stereotype).  A running gag seems to be that Georgia’s dress continuously gets stained throughout the events of the evening.  Georgia is also regularly having high school flashbacks of her teen boyfriend and ex-jock Craig (Jon Prescott).  Her constant pining for him is supposed to be a result of her dissatisfaction with her current life. Her embarrassment of having a non-existent career despite being voted “most likely to succeed” in school is what drives her to lie to everyone around her.  And once we realize that Ben is NOT actually gay (maybe it was just me) it turns out he’s been deeply in love with his bestie Georgia for . . . I don’t know . . . most of his life I guess.  It turns out that fleeing his hometown and going to Europe after graduation was because his unrequited love for her drove him insane . . . turned him gay . . . was too much to bear.

Now we take this little love triangle, throw in some singing and dancing, and we have ourselves a good movie, right?  Ehhh . . . . not so fast.  Georgia’s demeanor goes from cute and charming to obliviously hurtful (mainly to Ben) to completely erratic.  At times I thought I must have missed a scene where she was downing shots of alcohol or taking drugs that would explain her more eccentric behavior.  It turns out Ben is only at the reunion to tell Georgia how he feels (After only 10+ years of keeping it a secret?  Wow Ben, you’re a real man of action.).  He tries to relay this to her numerous times throughout the movie only to be continuously thwarted by ex-jock, ex-boyfriend, ex-quarterback Craig who possesses a kind of superhuman cock-blocking ability that allows him to show up at just the right place in just the nick of time to stop the conversation and steal Georgia away.

Aside from this, Ben’s main mission at the reunion is to break into and toilet paper the principal’s office.  Oh, what clever high jinks . . . classic Ben!!!  Say, if I get caught defacing school property I’d still be charged as a juvenile right . . . right???  Let’s gloss over the fact that Ben apparently has no qualms about just walking into the girl’s bathroom (cause he’s gay right?) to talk to Georgia.  He is also being followed around by hot, young intern Brook (Eileen Boylan) who found some reunion tickets on his desk at work and immediately assumed it meant the two of them were supposed to attend the event together (Duhhhhhhh!!!).  Despite Brook throwing herself at him, Ben only has eyes for Georgia (or he’s gay . . . let’s not completely dismiss this possibility).

After realizing her Glee group is onto her lies and have turned on her, Georgia decides to do a one woman cheer exhibition on-stage to show everyone how ‘awesome’ she still is (Sure, that should work.  I can’t imagine this turning bad.).  Unfortunately, this only serves to completely embarrass her to the point where Ben has to jump up on stage and join her cheers to try and deflect some of the humiliation.  This was such an uncomfortable scene even I wanted to leave the auditorium (The scene of Georgia chasing several vicodins with a shot of Jack Daniels prior to this display of school spirit must have ended up on the editing room floor.).  On a side note, where did Georgia get her cheerleading top (And it still fits?) and pom-poms?  Soooooo, she went home to get her old cheerleading gear but keeps on a dirty party dress.  A dress that has been so stained over the course of the evening that some might reasonably believe she arrived at this event after completing an Army obstacle course?  But I digress.

Much of the movie involves Georgia and Ben stealing away by themselves and recalling their high school memories.  Georgia must be the only person in the town who can’t see how completely head over heels Ben is with her (So yeah, she seems like a keeper).  Mingled in with these moments are numerous musical routines and high school flashbacks.  At the end of the night, Georgia gives a heartfelt speech to her class about how hard life is and performs an impressive solo of 'Oh Holy Night'.  The Christmas Magic of this song seems to make her a class hero again and all is right with the world except for one last cock-block by Craig.  Apparently, the magic of Christmas also helps her recover from her heretofore unknown memory loss as, while dancing with Craig, she realizes that she broke up with him because he cheated on her during Prom (Ohhhhhh, that’s right.  Silly me, how could I be expected to remember such a trivial event after 10 loooooong years.).  This leads to the inevitable reconciliation with Ben which leads to them dancing and kissing.  So, Ben finally gets the love of his life and we’ll try to ignore the fact that if she hadn’t remembered Prom then I guess she bones Craig and Ben is just sh*t outta luck for the rest of his life?  You’re truly a lucky guy Ben (but you might want to get her into rehab ASAP).

A couple of notes to the production staff.  Putting pigtails on a 30 year old woman does not make her look 17 in flashbacks.  Also the constant seduction attempts of the High School Principal by an obviously obsessed and hot former student is a bit unsettling even if, as she literally states in the movie, she’s completely legal now.  I give this a 1.5 out of 5.