Married by Christmas

I was looking forward to watching this movie. The premise sounded interesting and I love a good Christmas TV movie. Alas the reality of this terrible story line just mad me mad and frustrated. Who writes this tripe???? It's 2017 (when I watched it) and released in 2016 NOT the turn of the century. I'm sorry but I do NOT recommend this movie at all.

I gave it 2 stars because I do like the actors in it and have seen them in MUCH better productions.

So, a woman is trying to win over her stolen birthright by getting married. Confusion of business in the place of love. What we get is essentially a variation on "A Christmas Carol," a person who realizes that heart is more important than profit, except it takes her an exceptionally long time to learn her lesson.

As her sister puts it, Carrie is smart and yet so stupid. She fails to understand anyone on a personal level. In my opinion she does not really redeem herself in this movie. In fact I felt that no one learned much of anything.

Surprisingly, this movie was very well executed. The performances, script, and photography were quite convincing. Sadly it was lacked structure and originality.

Nobody involved in the making of this movie EVER talked to a lawyer about how to deal with the insane clause in Granny's ridiculous and mean spirited will (Phyllis Schlafly would have loved Granny). I'm a lawyer. The will supposedly states that the business is to be given to the then unidentifiable future husband of the first of her unmarried granddaughters to get married (which would leave her own daughter and both granddaughters completely disinherited). This could have and should have been challenged in court after Granny died (which apparently occurred long before the events in the movie) as setting forth a condition precedent that might never occur (given that it was possible when the will was submitted to probate that neither granddaughter would ever marry) and given the absence of an identifiable beneficiary at the time of Granny's death.

And even if such a legal challenge failed (unlikely if the relatives all agreed to challenge the will), a lawyer could easily have drafted a contract and a prenup when the first engagement came along that transferred half of the business to each sister (and perhaps giving the first husband half of his wife's share). An inadequate post marriage version of this approach was briefly and vaguely alluded to early on but the new fiancé said everyone should "sleep on it", at which point Katie (well played by April Bowlby) should have reconsidered the character of the person she was marrying. Instead, she and her fiancé started making plans to change the company.

It's very frustrating to watch a movie driven by an infuriating premise and even more so when the conflict is an antiquated vestige of a time when women were regarded as subservient second class citizens (although there's still a lot of that in the world).

Jes Macallan was really great as Carrie and, if you can ignore the premise (which I couldn't), there's some decent dialogue and well played relationship scenes. But Carrie's "plan" to get married before her sister was desperate and annoying, as was the failure to work out a fair win-win deal BEFORE the wedding. I hate watched the rest of the movie to see how they resolved the conflict (ugh) but I felt like there was a big black cloud hanging over everything. That's not the feeling I want when I'm watching a Christmas movie.

...but I like quirky. And the cast performs amazingly in this film, with the added benefit of some zippy dialog. But a special shout-out to Jes Macallan. Don't know if I've ever seen her before, but she does a deft turn as a conflicted sister and her acting is superb.

Okay, I admit that the first time I watched this movie, somewhere in the middle of the female lead's "crazy" phase, I ranted, "This movie is about an insane woman! Why would they make a Christmas romance about a crazy woman?!" - BUT did I turn it off? No. I needed to see what happened. :)

This movie is definitely not the typical "Hallmark-type" movie, and it challenges the viewer a little. (The heroine gets sloppy drunk at one point. The Dad of the family gets a little more suggestive with the Mom than we usually would see - but it's very funny and not offensive, at all.) The actors are unusually talented and I advise sticking with it to the end. Our heroine eventually... well, you know. It ends nicely.

Btw, one reviewer referred to a weird "family contract". No. The trouble starts with grandma's WILL - and as I understand it, a properly executed will is legally binding. Just sayin' - the story line doesn't have some nonsensical base to set the action in motion.... I'm watching it a 2nd time.