Nothing spells holiday romance and the spirit of Christmas as much as a desperate marriage of convenience. Yep, that’s the gist of this little Holiday tale staring Jes Macallan as Carrie Tate. Carrie is the top executive for a family owned food distribution company (sounds exciting so far right!?!?!). Everything is going smooth until Carrie’s sister Kate (played by April Bowlby) comes to Thanksgiving and announces that she’s engaged. It’s on this occasion that the parents feel it is the right time to let everyone know that Grandma, the founder of the family business, was an ultra-conservative traditionalist who believed that women should only be barefoot and pregnant and not working outside the home. So to that end, she placed a clause in her will that her daughter would not inherit her company. Instead, it would go to the husband of her first granddaughter to get married (hahaha . . . . . . no what? Seriously?). So, I guess Mom must have worked when she was younger and Grandma felt that Carrie and Kate’s father was a complete piece of chit and unworthy to own the company himself (but not such a loser that he couldn’t run the day to day operations of the company with granddaughter Carrie).
Mom and Dad have talked with various attorneys but it seems the will is incontestable. Maybe Grandma was just a very sweet, insightful and misogynistic woman with stunningly archaic beliefs regarding gender roles. Either way, Carrie does not take this information, nor the fact her parents withheld it from her all these years, very well. I mean you can’t really blame her, she spent her life working for and growing a family business which will eventually be turned over to someone NOT in the family. To top it off, Ethan (played by Adam Senn), Kate’s fiancé is somewhat of a self-righteous, organic food obsessed, hippie douche. When Ethan expresses interest in owning the company, Carrie makes a mental note to separate Ethan from the group and stab him in the heart with a potato peeler (well, it’s never mentioned in the movie but how could she NOT be thinking that?).
The next day at work, Carrie and her father (who never seems to take slight at the fact that he was never considered to take over the company in favor of a complete and utter stranger) meet with attorney Dylan (played by Coby McLaughlin) who represents a business that ‘Grandma foods’ wants to acquire. The meeting does not go well as Paul wants guarantees that there won’t be layoffs and believes the offer is low. Carrie responds by being rude and condescending to Paul (Not exactly top negotiating tactics but hey, she’s under a lot of stress.) and the meeting ends. While there is tension at home, Carrie decides to ignore everything related to the will when dealing with her family and focus on making Kate’s engagement and wedding everything it should be. At the same time, though, she tries to reconnect with an old flame from her youth Paul (played by Ryan Caltagirone).
This sounds like a solid strategy until an engagement party reveals that Ethan’s best man is in fact . . . . (wait for it) . . . . Dylan, the handsome attorney Carrie had been so ill-tempered with a few days prior. Carrie introduces everyone to her charming date and old flame Paul and processes her new predicament. Later, Dylan shows up at the company Christmas party (where Carrie is dressed as an Elf delivering candy canes to children) to discuss Kate’s bachelorette party. Carrie then realizes that she is responsible for throwing it (actually Carrie, it seems you are the ONLY person in the bridal party which makes you responsible for everything). As luck would have it, Ethan (aka hippie fiancé) wants to have his Bachelor party at a family cabin and would like to combine the two parties as one. After some awkward interaction where Dylan is charming and Carrie is terse and short (a little TOO much so) they agree that Ethan’s idea, to have what has to be the LAMEST sounding Bachelor and Bachelorette parties in the history of mankind, to be the perfect plan!
At the cabin Carrie is her typical mean self to Dylan while he remains sweet and charismatic. Despite Paul showing up, Carrie and Dylan do manage to spend a few moments together where not even Carrie’s omnipresent, pre-adolescent, social behavior can hide her obvious interest in Dylan. A gown fitting causes a strained confrontation between Carrie and Kate over the family business which convinces Carrie to solicit Paul into a marriage of convenience (how romantic), so she can retain control over the company. She plans an engagement dinner and subsequent flight to Vegas but things go awry when Paul admits he is gay and will only marry for love. Carrie later counters that statement by telling him that gay men should never use sports cliches (cause you know . . . gays can’t play sports???). After proving to the audience that she can be a mean drunk, she shows us she can also go full on crazy drunk which leads to her calling . . . you guessed it . . . Dylan. Dylan, the guy so selfless, sweet and charming you’d think he was ALSO gay, shows up and takes Carrie home.
The next day Dylan arrives at Carries work to give her back her phone. Carrie accuses Dylan of inappropriate behavior (#METOO) for being in her home when she changed into her pajamas and her not remembering anything of the evening. This leaves Dylan a bit miffed since Carrie only seems nice and complimentary when she’s drunk outta her mind (but then she won’t remember! Catch 22). At the rehearsal dinner she reconciles with her sister, let’s everyone know she is not with Paul (everyone seemed to know he was gay anyways) and shows a softer side to Dylan. Prior to the wedding she resigns from the company. At the reception, she dances with Dylan where we find out she has accepted a job to run the company he had earlier represented in their attempted take over. Dylan admits his feelings toward her (Are you sure about this Dylan? She seems a bit emotionally immature and extremely high maintenance. And just ask Gay Paul how she reacts to bad news.). Carrie admits she feels the same and they kiss. The End.
I felt Jes played her character well as the angry, conflicted Carrie but she never gave us the emotional payoff and gave Carrie any vulnerability at the end. Coby made Dylan sweet and likeable but also made him sort of a pushover in how he reacted (or didn’t react at all) to Carrie’s constant mood swings. The actors were okay, the story was okay, so I guess overall it was . . . . okay? I give it 2.5 out of 5.
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