Retrouvailles en musique

Rachel Boston (who plays Georgia Hunt) is usually a breath of fresh air in her low budget films. However, in this movie she felt the need to be 'cute' by giggling and laughing after every statement she made. I wanted to punch her.

Georgia's old high school clique, as well as her ex high school sweetheart, are still stuck in the high school mentality/stereotypes. Her three girlfriends are mean, jealous, back-stabbing bullies. Her high school ex is still the dumb, aloof jock, who doesn't know Georgia's name and calls her "Sport" instead.

Then there's her old high school best friend, Ben. It would have been nice if his character had been developed, considering he was the only other character to have grown up and out of acting like a teenager. But all we know about him is that he is a starving artist. Nothing more.

Let's not forget about the musical numbers, which was the only reason this movie has the word "Holiday" in the title. Apparently singing about Christmas trees makes this movie a Christmas movie?? Were those numbers really necessary? I sat through the first one, which dragged on forever, and then had to fast forward through the next three. They were awful. If you want to watch a 'Mean Girls' made-for-TV remake with D-list celebrities, this is the movie for you. Oh, and it had nothing to do with Christmas as it was misrepresented by the title.

The reason I didn't give the movie a 1/10 is because I was able to sit through the whole thing without turning it off.

Georgia (Rachel Boston) attends her ten year high school reunion where she clashes with an old rival, falls back in love with her high school beau, and reunites with her best friend Ben (Jonathan Bennett), who has always been in love with her. I give made-for-TV movies a lot of leeway. I don't expect great things from them. Even more so if they are Christmas themed. This is a schmaltzy, cheesy, predictable movie. But that's not why I dislike it.

I dislike it for a few reasons. First, the characters are incredibly immature. None of them act like grown-ups. They all act like they're still stuck in high school. Considering "what have I done with my life since high school" is a recurring theme in the movie you would think it would be addressed at some point. Perhaps some characters coming to conclusions about how little they've grown up. But no, they're all just juvenile throughout the entire thing from beginning to end. Second reason I dislike it is you have wasted and unnecessary characters. The wasted would be Marilu Henner and Harry Hamlin. Henner's role as the mom is very small and she really adds nothing to the plot. Hamlin is there as comic relief. Both actors are given next to nothing good to do, although they both outshine their younger costars in the personality department by miles. The unnecessary would be characters like Ben's stalker or Georgia's dad, who appears in one scene just to be a jerk to his daughter and is never heard from again. I felt like that subplot needed some closure. The stalker seemed to be there just to let us know Ben actually does date and isn't the pathetic loser he seems to be, pining away ten years later for a girl who acts like he has no penis.

Which leads to the biggest problem with the movie: the romance. That's what we all watch something like this for right? Well the romance fell flat for me as Georgia spends the entire movie fawning over some douchebag jock while walking all over her best friend, who is obviously in love with her. Georgia's inevitable revelation about who she really loves comes in the most insincere and forced way possible. I was left with the feeling that Georgia was settling for Ben. The way Rachel Boston portrays Georgia seemingly in heat over the ex while acting completely unattracted to Ben left me cold. There is nothing that gives me any indication that she is as sexually attracted to her friend as she is to the douchebag jock. The writing is partly to blame but really the chemistry between the actors is nonexistent. Even at the very end there's still something stiff about them. This is very poorly handled material, even for TV. I mean this is cookie cutter assembly line stuff you know? If you mess this up, you really suck.

There aren't words to describe how terrible this movie is. In every way. On every level. I can't.

There is really nothing good about this movie besides the attractive cast.

The writing is juvenile, active is terrible, the plot is very shallow and predictable, even the soundtrack is just awful.

As a play or a parody this movie can work, although not extreme enough to be considered a parody.

Even though all of the characters are 30 years old, they behave as if they are still in high school, they also didn't even bother to make the cast look any different in the flashback scenes, which made the entire thing very confusing since their adult self behave the same as their your counterparts.

This movie is probably the WORST Christmas movie I've ever seen and I've seen Santa Claus Conquers the Martians. The basic story-line combines a Christmas theme with a 10 year high school reunion. Rachel Boston as Georgia Hunt, our heroine is an assistant at a fashion house rather than the designer she's told her old class-mates. In high school she was voted most likely to succeed, was head cheerleader and an award winning soloist in the Glee Club. She broke up with her football player boyfriend at the prom because she though he was cheating on her. All through high school her best buddy was an arty guy who clearly had a crush on her that she was too oblivious to realize.

The nerdy high school guy still has his crush and she's still just as oblivious. The writing of this drek was so bad that I was continually cringing in embarrassment for the actors. Particularly poor Harry Hamlin. There are four musical numbers that are so painful to watch that I wasn't able to make it through any of them without fast forwarding. Jonathan Bennett plays Ben Oliver, and he made his scenes watchable but if it weren't for him I'd have given up on the film 30 minutes in.

To add insult to injury, the NetFlix version of this movie appears to have had some song substitutions, Most likely as an economy measure. It was kinda weird in the final scene where smitten guy is dancing with popular girl, to be hearing Auld Lang Syne while seeing the lyrics of Israel "Iz" Ka'ano'i Kamakawiwo'Ole's medley of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" and "What a Wonderful World" on screen.