Holiday Engagement Synopsis: Afraid to tell her family she’s been dumped, Hillary hires an actor to play her fiancé during a four-day Thanksgiving weekend at her parents’ house.
Hillary (Bonnie Somerville) is a reporter for a small, underfunded newspaper, essentially writing puff pieces. When the paper goes under, she finds herself unemployed but still eager to take Jason (Chris McKenna), her successful lawyer boyfriend, home to meet her parents. When Jason tells Hillary that he’s likely to be promoted to his firm’s office in Pittsburgh, their different dreams for the future come to a head, and Jason breaks off the engagement.
Devastated and unwilling to face her mother’s disappointment when she shows up alone to Thanksgiving, Hillary hires an actor named David (Jordan Bridges) to play Jason for the weekend. In return, he’ll get two tickets to a resort in Mexico that Hillary had won from a radio contest.
So Hillary introduces “Jason” to her dysfunctional family, and things don’t go as planned. TV veteran Shelley Long plays Hillary’s overbearing, judgmental mother, Meredith, and her portrayal can only be described as “phoning it in.” Sam McMurray is Hillary’s councilman father, Roy, and he spends most of the movie hinting at selling and buying votes as he tries to get some free legal counsel from an attorney, “Jason.” This plot point is never dealt with or wrapped up, so I imagine it was shoved into the script for a few mediocre jokes.
Haylie Duff plays Hillary’s spoiled sister, who has a new baby, a nanny, money, and an absentee husband. Duff received top billing in this movie after Somerville and Long, though I’m not entirely sure why. She’s barely in the movie, and Carrie Wiita, who plays Hillary’s other sister, has more screen time and a broader plotline. I imagine it was a recognition of the Duff name.
In any case, I watched Holiday Engagement on my flight back from Orlando last weekend to pass the time and distract me from the fact that I’m terrified of flying.
I am also not a lover of Hallmark movies by any means, but Holiday Engagement was on Netflix, and I had no idea it was initially a Hallmark original until after the fact. It was a silly movie, with a lot of silly drama and silly jokes. I like Somerville, probably because she played Ross’s girlfriend, Mona, on Friends, and I found her quite funny. But there’s not much to this movie at all. Hillary and David fumble around, trying to pretend David is Jason while falling in love with one another.
Hillary gets caught up in wedding plans with her mother – she even buys a wedding dress in a highly odd and out-of-place scene with Jennifer Elise Cox (Jan from The Brady Bunch Movies) – and David/Jason has to remind her that they’re not actually getting married. There’s also some weird drama with David’s ex-girlfriend and Hillary’s sister, who is engaged but in love with a waiter at a Spanish restaurant. That’s essentially the plot of Holiday Engagement…if you can call it a plot.
Of course, the real Jason shows up to win Hillary back, and of course, he’s a first-class jerk, etc., etc., forcing Hillary to figure out what she really wants and who she loves.
Look, While You Were Sleeping is one of my all-time favorite romantic comedies, and I could completely buy that Sandra Bullock fell in love with Bill Pullman (and his family) in a week or so. That’s the kind of chemistry they had. But I couldn’t get behind Hillary falling in love with David/Jason over three days. They spent most of the time awkwardly dancing around one another, and frankly, Hillary’s family is not likable like the Gallagher bunch in WYWS. Somerville and Bridges were fine, but their romantic chemistry was non-existent. They seemed completely uninterested in each other until the movie’s end.
Ultimately, I came away with it thinking, “that was okay, I guess,” but that was about it. I have read quite a few rom-coms this year that deal with “fake dating” trope. If it’s executed well, I can get behind it. But Holiday Engagement was just a mess. However, the house was pretty, and you guys know I’m a sucker for gorgeous homes in rom-coms.
Watched: 12/08/2019
Notable Song: Gloria in Excelsis Deo (Angels We Have Heard on High) by Bonnie Somerville and Jordan Bridges
