Hallmark Channel
Hallmark’s latest ‘Countdown to Christmas’ movie engages in a bit of time travel and alt-universe storytelling, covering a five-year span in the lives of its characters (no, no one is actually traveling to the future, it’s all linear time … but no one seems to age, gain weight, get a new hair style or anything else in even the slightest). The main story revolves around Alice (Katie Findlay) and Max (Jordon Fisher), two young people recently graduated from college, each with ambitions in the entertainment industry. Alice loves to direct theatre, Max wants to go to Hollywood to pursue an acting career. Alice gets some bad news from her mom that her latest business venture has folded and she won’t be able to travel to Chicago for Christmas, and she won’t be able to help Alice pay her rent either so Alice now has to find a job. The local theatre is only hiring on a volunteer basis, which Alice accepts to get her foot in the door, but she still needs a paycheck so her friends Daniel and Claire talk her into joining them as cater waiters for the holidays. Alice accepts, and her friends also alert her to the fact that Max is interested in her, something that her brain just can’t comprehend because the two have never had a meaningful conversation in all their years in college (which Max disputes later). They have a chat in the alley behind the catering space and sparks do fly, but with the holiday ending, Max reveals he’s headed West to pursue stardom.
A year later, Alice is still working for caterer Pam — who also happens to be Max’s sister — and she is surprised to see Max has also returned to help out. They still flirt with romance but in the end they decide it’s better to be friends since he’s going back to Hollywood and she has moved up a bit in the theatre, getting a chance to assistant direct all of the season’s shows. Another year passes, Max and Alice again meet up at the catering business for the holidays, and they realize their relationship is becoming more complicated as they develop real feelings for each other, but again Max heads back to California and Alice continues to work at the local theatre. By the fourth year, Max has finally gotten some notice in La La Land with a commercial that has led to him getting auditions including one for a major motion picture based on a comic book. As Max’s star takes off, he ghosts Alice, so their reunion the next Christmas is a bit awkward. By the fifth year, Alice is a full-fledged director at the theatre and she’s so busy she ghosts Max so that when he returns for the fifth year, the big catered party is for her opening night (the fourth year was for his film premiere which came with an ‘are they or aren’t they’ buzz over him and his co-star), and Max is doing all he can to avoid Alice until after the show so he doesn’t take her focus away. But they do cross paths and, after deciding to cut ties the year before because they could not make long-distance work, they now have to decide which is stronger — their career success or their love for each other.
The 5-Year Christmas Party — not the best title, by the way — turned out to be a much more charming film than expected from the ‘sneak peek’ scene that Hallmark had played during some of the other Christmas movies. The movie’s success rests squarely on the shoulders of its two leads, Findlay and Fisher. They both have great chemistry so it’s not hard to believe these two could fall in love. Findlay’s Alice is also a quirky delight, often self-deprecating when it comes to the idea that someone like Max could be interested in her, but also easily conveying Alice’s growing attraction to Max and her deep heartbreak when they decide to end the whatever it is they’ve been doing. Findlay really makes us care about Alice so much that we want her to succeed in her career and find some romantic common ground with Max. Findlay is a delight, a wonderful combination of Geena Davis and Mary Elizabeth Winstead, an actor who can make you laugh and cry with her skillful but natural performance. Fisher is, of course, a veteran performer (at just 30) going back to his days as a teen actor with Nickelodeon and Disney, winning the coveted Mirror Ball Trophy on Season 25 of Dancing With the Stars, hitting the Billboard charts with his music career, and conquering Broadway in major shows including Hamilton, Hadestown, Dear Evan Hansen and Sweeney Todd. He manages to make Max a likable guy, a bit awkward but still showing some confidence when it comes to his feelings for Alice, and totally breaking our hearts as he tearfully ends things with her. Both actors are just so good together that you can’t help but be invested in their lives.
The film has a wonderful cast of supporting actors including Jeff Avenue as Alice’s roomie Daniel (he’s the only one who really changes over time with an unfortunate mustache that appears during years three and four), Zenia Marshall as bestie Claire (who leaves for New York to pursue her cooking career at the end of Year 3), Katrina Reynolds as Max’s sister Pam, who supports his career and his romance with Alice, Brenda M. Crichlow as Lisa, Alice’s former professor and the director of the theatre who always supports Alice’s endeavors (even after she ghosted her when being overwhelmed during her volunteer days), Olly Atkins as Micah, another cater waiter who ends up in a cute relationship with Daniel, and Robyn Bradley as Alice’s mother Grace, mostly doing her scenes solo with phone calls to Alice, but she does show up for the big opening night to offer her daughter moral support.
Zac Hug has crafted a lovely screenplay that has to logically span that five year time period, only occasionally showing us the lives of Alice and Max during the rest of the year — which also gives the production design team and the costume people a chance to redress the sets and actors outside of the wintry holiday setting — while making the trajectory of their relationship feel plausible and authentic. Director Peter Benson keeps the film moving forward without getting confusing, keeping the action firmly rooted in Chicago (although we don’t know where Alice’s mother is calling from as we only see her in her home). We never see Max at work on his film, but there is one montage of him trying to call Alice over the span of a year, usually on a holiday. It all works well, and there are even a couple of nods to other Hallmark movies (Alice watches Never Kiss a Man in a Christmas Sweater, and Hallmark veteran Ashley Williams is name-dropped) which makes this Hallmark movie set in an alternative universe, if you think about it, or perhaps set in our ‘real world’ where Hallmark movies only exist as movies. It’s enough to make your brain hurt if you think about too hard.
Wherever or whenever The 5-Year Christmas Party takes place, it’s still a very charming romantic holiday movie that can make you laugh and cry and feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
The 5-Year Christmas Party has a run time of 1 hour 24 minutes, and is rated TV-G. The film is available On Demand and is streaming on Peacock.
Preview – The 5-Year Christmas Party
Hallmark Channel
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