A Christmas Kiss

I really want my inaugural post to be about a classic: A Christmas Kiss. I know it's not a classic in the traditional sense, as it was made in 2011, but it's not Christmas until I've watched A Christmas Kiss at least once which makes it a classic to me. This movie is not to be confused with the sequels, A Christmas Kiss II, and Merry Kissmas, which will both be reviewed at a later date.

The movie starts with our requisite heroine Wendy, who is beautiful and talented, but has no idea how beautiful and talented she is. Wendy used to be the set designer for the local theater, but has moved on to bigger and better things. She is now the personal assistant for Boston's premier interior decorator, and downright evil Pricilla Hall (played by Elisabeth Rohm who you may know as the DA from a few seasons of Law & Order). Miss Hall (yes, she is address as Miss Hall, not Pricilla) has promised Wendy that if she does all of her bidding, she will give her recommendations to be able to do her very own interior decorating. I'm not sure of the logic on this, but it doesn't really matter. With one ring on her cellphone, Wendy drops everything to do whatever Miss Hall demands of her, no matter how ridiculous, in hopes of one day pleasing her boss enough to make good on her end of the deal.

The first instance we see of this is when Wendy and her roommates are preparing for a fun night out. Her friend the makeup artist demands that Wendy let her dress her up as a sugarplum fairy, being that it's Christmas time and her friend is the hair and makeup person for the upcoming performance of Nutcracker at the theater where Wendy was previously employed. The outfit is complete with gobs of glitter, forcing Wendy to ditch her dowdy glasses, and a white cocktail dress that makes absolutely no sense for December in Boston.

Before the girls can step out for the evening, our heroine is forced to leave her friends and go to Miss Hall's penthouse apartment to turn on the heat and some lights so she doesn't have to come home from her business trip to a cold, dark apartment. (Seems like an outrageous demand considering there's probably a doorman at her upscale Boston penthouse that could do this, but then Wendy would never meet our hero.)

After completing her task, and dawdling in her boss's office pretending to be a successful interior designer, she goes out the the fateful elevator. This is where Wendy comes into contact with our hero, Adam (Brenden Fehr from the early 90s extraterrestrial drama, Roswell). I have no idea why he's in the building, or in the elevator with her. He doesn't live there, and it's never really explained, but we'll just go with it. After some awkward conversation about Wendy's outlandish outfit and makeup, the elevator begins to fall. Now, I'm admittedly not great in an emergency situation, and I've never been in a falling elevator, but I still find the couple's reaction to a falling elevator hard to understand. At the jolt of the falling elevator, Wendy falls into Adam's arms, and they soon begin making out. Perhaps I need to get into a sketchy elevator with my husband to test my reaction, but given my previous experience with emergencies I'd probably just start yelling, "THE ELEVATOR IS FALLING!" repeatedly. Maybe if I was a single gal about town, quickly plummeting towards my imminent doom, and there happened to be an attractive man conveniently there with me, my knee jerk reaction WOULD be to start making out with him. I guess I'll have to suffer through the rest of my life not knowing.

But I digress. We soon learn that Adam is actually the boyfriend of Miss Hall, (Gasp! dun dun DUN!) Back to why he was in the elevator, it's never explained and I can't just let it go. He doesn't live in that building, and he wasn't there to visit Pricilla, as Wendy would have run into him earlier. I guess I just have to accept that there are always gaping plot holes that we have to ignore in order for things to have a happy ending. Anyhoo, When his identity is revealed, he doesn't recognize our sugarplum fairy as she's wearing her dowdy glasses. It's very Superman-esque, which I get. I'm incredibly unrecognizable in my glasses. 

Don't be fooled. These pictures are of the same person.

As one can assume, hi-jinx ensue. After an unfortunate accident, Miss Hall is forced to go to her mother's house in another state to recover because she can't possibly let her boyfriend and man she wants to marry her see her in such a state, and Wendy is left to work side by side with Adam in decorating his house for Christmas. It's all very reminiscent of 1988s Working Girl with a hint of Cinderella.

Things seem doomed for Wendy, but as is typical of all movies of this genre, things will work out in the end.

As I mentioned before, I watch this movie at least once every Christmas. Sometimes I watch it in the summer, too. So obviously I love it. For this type of movie, I'd give it a rating of 10/10. It meets all of my requisites for a cheesy made-for-TV rom-com: sub-par acting, in-cohesive plot holes, predicable dialog, unnecessarily topless hero, anti-feminist-damsel-in-distress tropes, and a generic soundtrack. I really couldn't ask for more.

My real-world rating would probably be 3/10.

A Christmas Kiss is available for streaming on Netflix and Amazon.