Merry Kissmas (2015)

Title: Merry Kissmas
Year of Release: 2015
Available On: Netflix, September 2017
Rating: 2.5 out of 5 Jingle Bells

Kayla (Karissa Lee Staples) has to choose between a charismatic, dark, manipulative and ultimately not-very-nice director and salt of the earth, kind, cute, dependable (maybe kind of boring) caterer. It happens to be Christmas, it’s incidental to the plot. This story takes place in sunny Palo Alto, so forgive me if I have trouble getting into the Christmassy parts of this story. How do people who live in warm climates get in the spirit?? Also:

Carlton, a man of extravagance when it comes to Christmas, means to impress the public with his stage presentation of Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker – with only six ballerinas and no set.

So with “kiss” in the title, they have to get that part right. And I have to say, these actors looked like they genuinely enjoyed kissing one another. It’s pretty dang cute.

This movie does not pass the Bechdel-Wallace test, but do any of them? There’s also a VERY obvious jewelry company advertisement at the end, which isn’t my favorite thing. [I’m a no go on diamonds for a lot of reasons, but capitalism’s a drag you know.] I can’t believe I am even saying this, but I’m sick of these boring romances. Dustin (Brant Daugherty) is boring, Carlton (David O’Donnell) is a philanderer – doesn’t Kayla, every woman for that matter, deserve a lover more interesting than this pair? Dustin’s too good and Carlton a caricature. Daugherty is cute, heck, so is O’Donnell (he’s a great Patrick Dempsey lookalike).

Mrs. Billing was played by the mom on Everybody Loves Raymond’s mom and that’s worth a halfa jingle bell.