Holiday Movie Bonanza Begins!

It’s that time of year again! And by that time of year, I mean Daylight Savings Time. Suddenly it's dark by five and the outdoors have become frigid and unwelcoming. But it's also the time of year that my streaming services serve up my favorite genre of goofy rom-com: the holiday goofy rom-com! I'm here to tell you which ones to gobble up like sugar cookies, which ones to slice thinly like fruitcake, and which ones to avoid like coal in your stocking.

I started off this year with A California Christmas and A California Christmas 2: City Lights. They came out in 2020 and 2021 on Netflix. I considered watching them many times during last year's holiday movie binge, but between the bland title and the un-California poster, something else always won out. As soon as the calendar turned to November, I blocked myself out a night to double-feature my first holiday rom-coms of the year.

As A California Christmas begins, we are introduced to hot rich guy Joseph Van Aston (Josh Swickard). We know he's a hot, rich guy because he rides a motorcycle around San Francisco and lives in a hotel where he has sex with women whose name he can't remember in the morning. He works with his mother running Van Aston Industries, a conglomerate that specializes in businesses convenient to the plot. His mother wants him to go out to Petaluma, which is only an hour from SF but also in a completely different universe. There's a recalcitrant landowner there who won't sell her family farm to Van Aston, and Joseph's mother wants him to use his hot richness to charm her into a deal.

When Joseph arrives, he meets Callie (Lauren Swickard), who is in the midst of delivering a very juicy calf. She mistakes him for a ranch hand and puts him to work. Seeing an opportunity to ingratiate himself with the family, Joseph takes the job, despite his total lack of ranching knowledge. He enlists his fairy god-butler Leo (Ali Asher) and an actual ranch hand named Manny (David Del Rio), who bond over their shared love of wine and video games. As the deadline for the sale looms and Joseph and Callie grow closer, he knows he'll have to tell her the truth about who he is...even if it means risking everything they've built together.

You might have noticed that our two leads have the same last name, and that's because they're married in real life. Lauren Swickard also wrote and co-produced both movies, and I have to say I think it's cool that she figured out how to make this opportunity for herself. I also think it's cool that she gave us so much time to ogle her hot husband as he does a series of slo-mo farm chores shirtless. I got the distinct impression that the chores were reverse-engineered in order to maximize the on-camera hotness, and I'm not mad about it. The leads have good chemistry, and there is an actual sexy scene in this that goes as far as bra-removal (scandalous!). However, the real fizz is between Manny and Leo, who have an opposites-attract, forced-proximity thing going that you can't tell me didn't get weird at least once. It is impossible to drink that much red wine and not make out. They were the freshest thing in this movie, which featured a potpurri of stock characters and tropes that didn't always play well. Callie's mom is introduced wearing a cancer hat, which is such a lazy story-telling device. Why does every character in a movie with cancer wear that hat? Do the doctors give it to you when you're diagnosed? It's also a bit too long and not especially Christmas-y. It's less a Christmas movie than a farm romance that takes place at Christmas.

(There is one super weird element I have to mention, and it's because I can't figure out how this bit of dialogue made it all the way from script to screen. Joseph comes into the bar where Callie works wearing a flashy Western shirt. Callie says "You're a real rhinestone cowboy, huh?" Joseph replies something like, "Well, Stallone and Dolly, what's not to like?" Callie laughs and says, "That's my favorite movie." She's referring to the 1986 movieRhinestone,starring Sylvester Stallone and Dolly Parton, which was a huge flop and not something that a lot of people would call their "favorite" movie. However, that movie never even mentions "Rhinestone Cowboy," a Glen Campbell song from 1975. So they *both* have seen the obscure movie Rhinestone, but they *both* made the wrong reference about it? Anyway, here's "Drinkenstein," one of the highlights of Rhinestone, which will give you a taste of the kind of movie these two characters definitely would not love.)

A California Christmas: City Lights picks up a year after the first film. Joseph and Callie have turned the farm into a successful winery (which is absolutely impossible on that timeline, but okay). Joseph is doing sexy farming chores, Callie is laughing with her little sister, Manny is doing trick wine tastings and thrilling crowds of tourists by smacking his lips and saying "Mmmm...cinnamon." Joseph proposes to Callie, and then immediately discovers that his mother was so inspired by his love life that she decided to run off with her yoga instructor. Joseph has to take over the family business in the big city. But how will farm girl Callie deal when confronted with the excesses of Joseph's former lifestyle?

Callie and Joseph decide to get married on Christmas Eve because apparently there's a particular fancy ballroom available. They were also planning a big company gala, and frankly I'm not entirely sure if the wedding was supposed to be part of the gala or a separate event. Joseph is working with Victoria (Laura James), whose evil eye makeup marks her as a rival for Joseph's affections. Callie runs into her former boyfriend's brother, who works for Joseph but also appears to have a full-time gig working at a homeless shelter that, get this, does multiple live nativity performances every day through the holiday season. Multiple, Live, Nativity Performances, Every Day! These aren't even cute little kids creating onstage hijinks ala The Best Christmas Pageant Ever: they are grown adults in cheap costumes pontificating about the spirit of the season. And they do this twice a day! And the place is packed! We watch it three times on screen! I'm sorry I'm so fixated on this element, but I just can't puzzle out how it's possible that this dull little play became the hottest ticket in town.

Meanwhile, Manny is back on the ranch running things while Callie and Joseph are away. Early on Manny and Leo are drinking wine and playing VR video games and they should honestly just kiss already, come on. But then Leo disappears and Brandy (Raquel Dominguez) shows up and suddenly she and Manny are drinking wine and playing video games and falling in love. What is this heteronormative bullshit? Brandy is fine, but she's no Leo. Laura Swickard is the writer and star of this franchise, but the real MVP is David Del Rio as Manny. He's goofy and warm, but there's a manic edge to him that tells me he can go a lot further as an actor than this movie is requiring of him. The two funniest sequences in the movie are all about him. I genuinely might go watch everything he's in now.

So I'm grateful I watched this series because it introduced me to an actor I want to keep an eye on, but I would say that my initial assessment of these movies was correct. They are neither California-y enough nor Christmas-y enough, and while the leads are straight hotties I'd recommend fast-forwarding through some of the tortured plot.

But watch every scene with Manny twice. (Manny + Leo 4eva!)

What’s on your holiday movie radar? Let me know at lily@lilycahill.com!