THE SECOND LABOR OF HALLMARK: Pride, Prejudice and Mistletoe (2018)

The good news is this was better than last night's labor.  It has some of the things I expect in a movie: a definable character arc for our heroine, a bit of forward momentum, some lines of dialogue that actually don't feel like we're having backstory forced upon us.  It also has Lacey Charbet, one of what my esteemed friend and half of my Official Hallmark Advisory Council William Bibbiani call 'The Queens of Hallmark,' who has acting experience and some charisma.

...the kind of charisma, in fact, that I could not stop thinking of how this was Anna Kendrick's future if she acts carelessly.  If I did not know better, I'd swear Charbet was consciously doing a Kendrick imitation in an effort to conceal the creepiness of this particular Hallmark Hell.

Because make no bones about it--there is still plenty of creepy to go around.  I was particularly aware of how, for the first half of this film, the only people who are noticeably People of Color are clearly made The Bad Guys (They have to be bad guys; they're Business People Who Care Only About Business).  Just like in Christmas at Graceland, I got a definite sense that someone was gaslighting Charbet's Darcy--in this case, her mother and best friend Kaylee--about twenty minutes in.  And there's a weird cleanliness to the film, not only to 'Permberly, Ohio' (played by Pembroke, Ontario, Canada) but in the opening scenes supposedly set in New York City*, that gives the film a strange unreality.  I do feel there are actors chosen here not for their talents but for the quirky thing they're capable of doing.  It's the only way I can explain the presence of Anna Hardwick, who's only purpose in this story is to show up just when Charbet and her Hunky Hunk O' Destiny, Brendan Penny, are underneath some mistletoe, smirk and urge them forward on  their Destined Path Of Holiday Happiness.

The thing that really annoyed me is how the film took its sweet time meandering around until we're stuck in the last act and writer Nina Weinman suddenly forces a crisis between our two destined lovers.  There's no reason for this character who was set up within the first five minutes as Darcy's ex to profess his love until the last minute in such a way that the Hunky Hunk O' Destiny can misinterpret the scene except that we need that little bit of artificial anxiety.

Thankfully, there's a lot less Christmas Porn than the previous film....but there are some scenes that are scarily identical to ones in Christmas at Graceland.  The Playful Snowball Fight in front of the house between our two leads specifically made me feel like I'm stuck in repeat.

This is better than Christmas at Graceland, but I don't think it's particularly good.  If you remove Charbet and put some other actress in the role of Darcy, I think this would've been a disaster.

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Tomorrow's Labor features another Queen of Hallmark, Candace Cameron Bure, as she is trapped in a department store after hours on Christmas Eve with her Guardian Angel.  Sadly, I suspect there will not be the kind of mayhem that usually results from this scenario in A Shoe Addict's Christmas!

*--The biggest annoyance?  Watching Charbet walk pass a downtown subway station entrance marked 'Stone Street' where you can catch the P,I, 14, 15, and 16 train.  To the best of my knowledge, there is no Stone Street in downtown Manhattan, and none of those trains exist.  If you're going to associate my city with Business People Who Care Only About Business, show some respect for its geography!