Yes its the second day of November, yes; I chose to jump onto the BET Christmas station on Pluto TV tonight for some good old fashioned 'Hallmark' style christmas movie shenanigans…Dont judge me, you'd do the same.
And so! we arrive at 'Wrapped Up In Christmas' a 2017 Holiday romance film set in a mall in the midwest that is pretty much 'Hallmark' without the budget, and in many ways is MUCH more sincere for it.
The plot concerns Mrs. Elise Nash and Mr. Ryan McKee. SHE is a back office planner and organiser for the towns mall, making sure things run smoothly, look okay and keep on budget. HE is an out of work Lawyer with an artist streak who helps his aunt in running a toy store in the mall thats been a feature of the mall for the better part of two decades. When a chance encounter at a coffee shop brings the couple together which is then compressed by the fact that Ryan is asked to stand in as a 'mall santa' when the original pick drops out. And while doing so, Elise's sister? child? daughter (I didnt catch it…but shes babysitting her basically) goes to see the mall santa, and tells him a TON of information about Elise to help him woo her. Especially noting an interest in reading and the novel 'A Christmas Carol'.
SO! Ryan books up, learns a bit more about Elise and eventually, with the help of a couple of cafe owners within the mall, manages to woo Elise out onto a date. But Ryan becomes nervous that his house of cards may fall down as the relationship grows, because he's certain there'll be a time when he will have to tell Elise that he basically managed to get her 'over the line' by deceiving her into thinking he was more cultured and 'connected' to her than he really was.
Meanwhile, Elise winds up in a problem of her own, when the mall she works for winds up in direct competition with a rival outlet, and during cost cutting measures SHE signed off on, she accidentally signs off the closure of Ryans Aunts toy shop…Everything comes to a head when Ryan learns what Elise did. Leading to a MASSIVE falling out…that may only be solved…by the power of christmas.
And what we have here is a pretty middle of the road for this kind of genre christmas flick. a somewhat generic offering in the grand scheme of things, but its sturdy in its own way.
The script keeps a good pace, is ultra simple on its narrative structuring, ends about as solidly as these things tend to do, the characters are likeable and interesting in their own ways. the arc across the stories are compelling, and overall this blends romance, light hearted humour and some sadder, more touching moments quite effectively for me.
The directions relatively solid for this kind of feature, its in the low to lower mid budget range, but its bright, colourful and well considered. Sequences are largely well built, and the cast all seem animate and seem to know where their marks are and hit their cues and deliveries largely successfully…While I will say that there are a few moments where deliveries fall a bit flat or come across as a bit 'Stagey' on the whole it was a pleasent enough watch.
On the cine front, again, we dont have anything too crazy, but shots are decently enough composed, match the energy of the script for the most part and the sequences are sturdily built into a well structured edit that knows what kind of feature this is and delivers on the brief fine enough.
Performances are a little on the dry side here, some of the deliveries as mentioned falter on the landing, which is a bit of a shame honestly as there are also some really quite solid turns here too. On the whole, I dont think theres anything bad delivered here, its just that nothing really goes above and beyond what would be expected from this kind of genre.
And the soundtrack is actually a pretty solid little work mixing stocky sounding christmas instrumentals with some really nice soul, jazz and poppy sounding 'soundalike' christmas classics, but with new lyrics over the top that help to sell the messages of whats happening on screen. I really liked the score for this one, even if it had 'soundalike' qualities, it had a lot of heart that helped endear me to the overall production.
All in all? I liked this one. 'Hallmark' style light hearted romance pieces really do struggle to break the stereotypings that have made them the staple of the holiday season. And this one unfortunately never quite breaks free of those trappings. But it was a very sturdy and solid piece that threw just enough standout bits in to make me feel more engaged with it than some of the other films i've seen of this sort. I dont know if I could full on 'recommned' this one…But I will say that I enjoyed it enough that if it was showing again, I would happily give it another spin.
source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/wrapped-up-in-christmas/
