Lifetime
Lifetime’s ‘It’s a Wonderful Lifetime’ series pulls a real fast one on viewers with its ‘new’ holiday romance, Sweet Holiday Romance. Does that title sound familiar? It should because Hallmark Channel a week earlier aired A Suite Holiday Romance, so the confusion seems intentional because the Lifetime movie is actually a year old and its original title was Christmas, Love and Fudge. Someone even tried to create an IMDb page with the new title, but a quick search of the lead actors’ profiles is where you will discover the real title of the movie. So what happens when you’re already 30 minutes in and you realize all of this? You might as well keep watching.
Amanda (Erin Karpluk), a world-renowned pastry chef, is worried she’s losing her edge because after a botched launch by a major food distributor of a frozen line of her pastries, the internet has not been kind, taking her from star pastry chef to pariah overnight. She is offered a possibility to relaunch her products by handsome marketing exec Simon (Christopher Russell), but she quickly shuts him down as she has other fish to fry … or cookies to bake. Wanting to re-claim her title as the Queen of Christmas Cookies, she enters the Chicago Christmas Market Christmas Cookie Competition (say that five times fast), which requires that bakers pair up with other businesses to create the best confections. The theme of the contest is to produce something that reflects a special childhood holiday memory. Knowing she’ll find inspiration in her hometown of Paisley, Amanda and pal Diana instantly remember their favorite thing about the holidays was Joy to the World Fudge, so Amanda decides to pair with the home of said fudge, The Little Shop of Fudge, a staple in the community. Little does she know, the owner, Jackie, has left her handsome nephew in charge of operations and he doesn’t have a clue about making fudge (or actually operating a retail establishment). Amanda is doubly shocked to learn that the Simon who made her the offer is the nephew now running the shop. With Jackie away and the shop completely sold out of the fudge, Simon and Amanda must work together to recreate Jackie’s top secret recipe for her world-famous fudge in time for the competition, learning that their opposite philosophies just might make for a sweet and savory romance.
Lifetime
The story for Christmas, Love and Fudge … I mean Sweet Holiday Romance, by Michael Musti, Madison Walsh and Courtney Cilman, is a bit maddening. Perhaps there were too many cooks in that kitchen because unless one or two of these writers had to come in and try to save a bad script, there’s no reason it should have taken three people to write this. There are just so many questionable aspects to the story, the first being that it seems none of the writers have ever seen a baking competition show or know how TV production works. No production would suddenly call contestants with zero notice to come to the studio — which would then also require the host and crew to be there as well — to film them receiving the contest brief. They would have gotten written instructions ahead of time (like they do on The Great British Baking Show). There was no need to have a whole production for a two-minute shoot. Second, no one would entrust their business to anyone completely inexperienced — even if it is a beloved nephew — and leave them totally unprepared with zero stock of the most popular item for the holiday simply hoping they’ll figure it out. On top of that, Amanda requested 30 boxes of the fudge for the competition and Jackie didn’t even do that for her. And there is no recipe to be found because it’s Jackie’s closely guarded secret. But she’s shown purposely putting her recipe book in her purse before she leaves because her plan was to force Amanda and Simon to work together because Jackie thought they would be a cute couple! What?!? You’re going to risk your beloved business to play Dolly Levi (Google it)? It only goes downhill from there because Amanda and Simon decide to recreate Jackie’s recipe based on a poem that is included with every box of fudge. It doesn’t explicitly mention any ingredients, but Amanda believes each line is a clue to one of the five special ingredients and only Simon could know some of the more specific ones that obviously apply to his aunt and late uncle’s romance. With absolutely no indication of time, Amanda and Simon begin to work together to decipher the clues … One. Day. At. A. Time. There is zero urgency in coming up with the recipe that makes the fudge so special (mind you, the shop is also suffering daily because of a lack of product — is Jackie the only employee?). Amanda can easily create the base, but she takes her sweet time figuring out the rest of the ingredients. To further complicate matters, pal Diana decides this would be the perfect moment to set up a dinner date for Amanda with Kevin (according to the subtitles; Levin, according to IMDb), her maybe high school sweetheart because he’s a doctor now. And Kevin comes in hot, believing for no reason that Amanda is ready to jump right back into a relationship with him. No, scratch that, he seems to think after one dinner that they are a couple again and he even confronts Simon about his relationship with Amanda, trying to be all Alpha Male against the hulking Simon. Luckily Amanda is able to pass Kevin off to her diner waitress friend Tanya … and they both show up to the competition looking as if they’ve been in a relationship for months instead of a day. And we have no idea what exactly Amanda makes for the competition but it doesn’t look like cookies. WTF is going on in this movie?!? None of this makes any sense and the only thing that saves it from being a one-star movie are the leads, both of whom are probably better known for much better Hallmark Christmas movies.
Erin Karpluk, from Three Wiser Men and a Boy and Three Wisest Men (as well as some Lifetime thrillers), is charming, and occasionally sassy, as Amanda. She shows from the beginning that Amanda, while a professional, is still deeply hurt by how spectacularly her product line failed — through no fault of her own except trusting the wrong people — and how social media so quickly turned on her, patronizing the gimmicky baker across the street, KT Cinnamon (not her real name), because of her hybrid pastry creations like the ‘macarooni’ (which looks like a giant macaron but they never explain what the mash-up is). Karpluk keeps Amanda focused, while only showing some subtle signs of interest in Simon, and trying to be polite to Kevin unaware that her politeness is giving him all the wrong signals. Karpluk knows how to play comedy and drama, so she at least makes the movie watchable because of her performance. Also adding to the watchability is Christopher Russell as Simon. He manages to not make Simon an arrogant jackass when first approaching Amanda about the product relaunch, and he takes it in stride when she rejects his offer. They both have that ‘You?!’ moment when she finds him at the fudge shop, but after his initial bravado to prove to her he can run the shop, he is quickly humbled and becomes a good partner to her in trying to figure out the recipe. It doesn’t hurt that he’s easy on the eyes, but here’s a question for the director: in one of their ‘let’s waste some time’ moments when Amanda suggests they take a sauna to relax and recharge, why are there several full head-to-toe shots of Karpluk while Russell is only seen to mid-chest? Women are the main viewers of these movies, so wouldn’t you want more beefcake than cheesecake to make things a little more interesting? Russell certainly seems to have nothing to be ashamed of in the physique department so it just seems a bit sexist on the part of director Danny J. Boyle to only show full shots of Karpluk. Just sayin’. Karpluk and Russell have wonderful chemistry that helps hold your interest, and even when things go awry, they still manage to keep working together instead of one of them storming off. Of course there is a business complication that may force Simon to return to California right before the competition, and Karpluk has to show Amanda’s hurt and disappointment but remain focused on the task at hand. Both of them are marvelous and are the only reason to spend any time watching this movie.
Lifetime
The supporting cast range from very good to odd. Ashley Alexander is very good as Diana, showing that she is a great friend to Amanda even when she is written with some absurd business. Diana knows how important the competition is to Amanda, so no true friend would try to ambush their friend with an old flame like that. Blame the writers for that nonsense. At least Alexander plays the role well enough that we can forgive Diana for her actions. Dalias Blake plays Levin … Kevin as a bit of a creeper, if I’m being honest. Amanda does what she can to humor him (maybe she’s worried this will turn into a regular Lifetime drama if she doesn’t play along), but the way he marches into the fudge shop to let Simon know that he and Amanda are a couple is just … off-putting. In the end, we may have to worry for the safety of Tanya (Toby Marks) when Amanda suggests Kevin go on a date with her instead and then they show up at the competition joined at the hip. (Quick aside — why are there no seats for the audience watching the competition? Everyone is expected to stay standing there for two hours?) Marks is also fine as Tanya but maybe she is a little off-balance herself, because she is obviously after Kevin because he’s a doctor (she mentions how cute he was in his scrubs when he came in one day). Edward Lafferty offers good support to Alexander as husband Barrie, but he doesn’t have a lot to do. Janet Anderson — in what appears to be her first filmed acting credit — does a nice job as Jackie, even if she is a little too trusting of her nephew to keep her store open (and it seems to be closed most of the time, even when she returns from her vacation). Jacqueline Marie is the real odd duck here as KT Cinnamon. The way she completely over-acts during the scene where the bakers are receiving the brief — simply with her sneers and eye-rolls — is bizarre, but so is the moment at the end after the winner is announced. Her robotic movement and plain awkwardness make it seem like she’s never interacted with a human being before. To be fair, this is her third credited role and the first one with a character name, so perhaps it’s just some inexperience that a good director can help her with. Not that Boyle isn’t a good director. They just have no time to do more than two takes on these movies so there is little time to coach anyone through a performance, even if it is something as simple as shaking someone’s hand. It’s a real mixed bag of performances supporting the leads.
Without commercials, Sweet Holiday Romance runs less than 90 minutes, but it feels like several hours pass before it ends. That’s through no fault of the performances of Karpluk and Russell, it’s just the way the script pads out what should be an urgent matter of discovering five secret ingredients. There is no urgency to the matter. They guess one, Amanda makes a batch of fudge, then she has to run off and do something else for the rest of the day. Instead of dilly-dallying, they could have had to make several attempts at guessing an ingredient instead of getting it on the first try. Making the story more of a ‘treasure hunt’ could have been more entertaining and allows Amanda and Simon to form a deeper relationship without the Kevin nonsense intruding. It truly is baffling. It’s hard to recommend this as appointment viewing, but if it happens to be on and you like Karpluk or Russell, then it would be worth your time if you have the greatest patience. Otherwise, go make your own fudge or cookies or combination of both. It’ll be much more rewarding in the end.
Sweet Holiday Romance has a run time of 1 hour 27 minutes, and is rated TV-PG.