By Geno McGahee
It is only 10 days away from Christmas and my holiday movie review spree continues with a new entry from Netflix called “A CALIFORNIA CHRISTMAS.” Typically, I would not want to watch such a movie. I associate the holiday with snow and see it as a very New England sort of deal, but I’m a New England guy. I have a hard time with Christmas when it’s warm and sunny or when they put it in the tropics. I want my holiday to feel write, but I gave this one a chance.
Written, directed and starring Lauren Swickard, the film surrounds Joseph (Josh Swickard), a rich guy that is enjoying his wealth. He comes from a powerful family and hasn’t found much on his own. He is just taking advantage of women and his mother is rather tired of it. She wants her son to be the future of her company and to step up and be a man and she thinks that the best way is to go to a small town and manipulate Callie (Lauren Swickard) into signing a contract and selling her farm and land.
Escorted into town by Leo (Ali Afshar), Joseph dresses down and prepares for his mission to charm Callie. He assumes the role of “Manny” a farmhand that was set to go there. Leo meets up with the real Manny (David Del Rio) and buys him off, but the two hit it off and they are pretty funny together. Del Rio reminds me a lot of Anthony Carelli in JINGLE ALL THE WAY 2. He is just silly and adds an element of comedic relief in this that gets better as the film goes on and I think the film could have benefitted if they added just a little bit more of him.
We learn that Callie’s fiancée and father were killed in a car wreck and her mother, Wendy (Amanda Detmer), is dying of cancer and is not doing any more chemotherapy. I began to wonder where the fuck I knew Detmer from and then it hit me. She was the incredibly hot chick in SAVING SILVERMAN and they really made her look frumpy in this. I know that SAVING SILVERMAN was 20 years ago, but I felt compelled to check out current pictures of her and after doing my research via Google images, I have discovered that she is still beautiful…in case you’re wondering.
As Joseph learns about Callie’s life, he soon falls for her and doesn’t want to steal her land anymore, but they are still up to their elbows in debt. He begins to try to persuade his mother not to proceed and starts to scramble for ways for Callie to hold onto the farm, while hiding his identity.
Callie and Joseph start to really click and the sparks are flying and then we get the wannabe boyfriend, Connor (Gunnar Anderson), a ginger with an attitude. When you get a guy named “Connor,” you know you got a prick on your hands. He was the friend of the deceased fiancée and wants Callie to be with him now. She wants no part of him and I don’t blame her. The guy’s a creep. I would not want him at a farm. Imagine what he’d do to the sheep!
This film is very formulaic, but that’s not a bad thing. You know that Connor will expose Joseph as a fraud, Callie will get mad and then she will end up with Joseph, which happens here. I don’t mean to give you a spoiler, but if you can’t see this shit coming, you are too stupid for this film. You need to watch ELMO IN GROUCHLAND. That’s more your speed.
A CALIFORNIA CHRISTMAS doesn’t have much of a holiday feel and I’m not saying that because of the state it is based in. There is very little reference to the holiday and not much décor until the end. Despite that, this is a decent film with good acting and it was nice to see Amanda Detmer again. I was hoping that Santa would come down and cure her of cancer at the end or that they found out that the doctor was a fraud and lied to her, but it wasn’t to be.
I recommend this, but don’t expect much holiday feel. It’s a drama with some laughs and good performances across the board.
