Reindeer Games Homecoming | 2022 Christmas Movies

As I was poking around the web a bit, I found out that Sarah Drew voiced some of the characters in Daria, one of my favorite shows! I knew her from the early 2000s show, Everwood, and she has done a few other Christmas movies but I never knew about Daria. I think I might like her a bit more now.

MacKenzie (Sarah Drew) is a high school biology teacher and an EMT. After her firefighter father dies, she joins his former team to compete in the town’s big fundraiser - The Reindeer Games. This year, her high school crush, Chase (Justin Bruening), comes home from Hollywood to visit his pregnant sister. When he gets talked into joining a competing team, sparks begin to fly between the two.

I admit that I don’t always pay close attention to the opening credits of these Christmas movies. Most of the time the opening panning shots are awful and the credit font is either unreadable or ugly. But that means I completely missed the fact that Sarah Drew also wrote this movie. I don’t think that changes my opinion of it but it’s an interesting fact.

A lot of Christmas movies suffer from having nothing going on. Reindeer Games Homecoming has the opposite problem. There is a ton of stuff going on and some of the stuff gets kicked to side a bit. For example, Chase supposedly wants to nab this role in an action movie. But it only comes up as an excuse for something. He originally doesn’t want to join the team for the polar plunge because he’s afraid he’ll get sick and he really wants this movie role. The movie is filming in Prague so who knows what would happen if he gets into a relationship with MacKenzie. (Though, honestly, he thinks about that part the least.) Meanwhile, MacKenzie is still mourning her father while doing the morning crossword puzzle, teaching biology, moonlighting as an EMT, and also participating in the Reindeer Games. The movie wants us to believe that she loves crossword puzzles but we only see her doing two - one of which is a scavenger hunt at the end of the movie. I think Drew wanted to make the characters feel more three-dimensional but shoved too much in there for a 90-minute movie.

Despite the movie being chock full of nothing, it is still pretty fun to watch. The acting is decent and I really enjoyed watching Chase and MacKenzie complete in the Games. Go ahead and give it a watch. If nothing else, you’ll get to see Bruening jump into freezing cold water in his underwear. That is worth something, right?

Christmas In Vienna | 2020 Christmas Movies

Last year, Hallmark sent us to Rome for Christmas. This year, it’s Vienna. I guess European countries are romantic. Thankfully, this isn’t the same movie in a different location.

Jess (Sarah Drew) is a concert violinist. She is in Vienna for the holidays to perform a concert on Christmas Eve. While there, she plans on hanging out with her old college friend, Tori (Alina Fritsch). Tori works as a nanny for an American diplomat named Mark (Brennan Elliott). When Tori gets a chance to sell her handmade ornaments in one of the local markets, Jess agrees to help out with the nanny duties.

I really like Sarah Drew as an actress. I first saw her way back in 2004 on Everwood and I’m happy that she has been able to keep working, even though she frequently plays the same type of character - slightly awkward yet adorable. And this is no different. At least this time the stereotype is offset by her interaction with the children, Julian (Oskar Ricketts), Summer (Allegra Tinnefeld), and Isla (Abigail Vollnhofer). All of the Jess/children scenes are great. The actors seem to get along wonderfully.

As for the romance? Well…it’s filled with a lot of almost moments. Moments where the two adults should just talk about what is on their mind but they won’t so they just kinda let each other float away until the very last minute. Or like the scene where Mark asks Jess’s opinion on something then gets mad when she tells him what she thinks. That was annoying. It’s really just another movie with no real conflict. Instead of a will they/won’t they scenario, the biggest conflict is about whether Jess leaves Vienna (where she doesn’t actually live…she’s only visiting for this one concert) and whether Mark moves his family out of Vienna (they move a lot so I’m not sure why this is surprising). Yeeeaaah.

Christmas in Vienna is another movie that is just fine to watch…unless you hate Silent Night. They play it a lot. Otherwise, the acting is fine, the story is fine, the locations are very pretty (it was actually filmed in Vienna!). It’s better than a lot of the other Hallmark/Lifetime movies I’ve watched. I only wish there was a little more oomph to it….

Advent Day #17: Christmas Pen Pals

Aha! A Christmas movie with an interesting take on romantic matchmaking! I’m really glad to finally have a movie that isn’t the same old tired formula.

Hannah (Sarah Drew) is one of the founding members of the dating app, Perfect One. However, the company begins to tank right a few weeks before Christmas. In order to find a solution to her problem, Hannah heads home to celebrate the holidays with her family. Once there, she finds out that the town is pulling out an old tradition where people sign up to get matched with a secret pen pal. In order to get her widowed father back in the dating game, Hannah agrees to sign up as well. Will she meet her soulmate?

We’ve already seen movies where the leading woman runs a dating app. (Hi, Mingle All The Way.) This time around, the plot doesn’t revolve around the app so much. It’s basically a device to show that Hannah is super techy and she doesn’t do ‘normal’ things like writing letters. But once we establish that the town doesn’t do things like wifi or grande lattes with all of the syrup squirts, the tech thing is pretty much thrown to the wayside. There are a few calls between Hannah and her business partner but that’s about it.

The interesting thing about the movie is how the writers go about connecting Hannah with her pen pal. We only see them trade a few letters but they are very open with each other right from the beginning. Of course, her pen pal/true love turns out to be her high school ex-boyfriend, Sam (Niall Matter). That isn’t really the important part though. It’s her journey to reconnect with him and how sweetly he treats her, even though he doesn’t know it’s actually her… OK, the plot falls apart a little bit. I mean, he does send her on a scavenger hunt for some earrings before he knows who he is matched with but, whatever, it’s TRUE LOVE.

It was definitely a cute movie. I did spend way too much time trying to figure out who he dad was (he’s Michael Gross from the 80s show Family Ties)…that’s just my own senility rearing it’s ugly head. Overall, I enjoyed the movie. It was an interesting take on ‘how to update online dating.’