Sugarplummed

Something different for a change, a very fun and spirited movie. They Christmas rules and magic and essentially making fun of so many Christmas movies. Gently but definitively poking fun at Hallmark movies such a refreshing blast of lighthearted fun and sorely needed this time of year.

This movie will truly make you laugh and the actress who plays Sugar Plummed plays her part so well I have a new actress to look forward to in the future.

I hope they come up with more movies like this that they continue to keep from getting to serious about themselves all the time. A true breath of fresh air this Christmas season.

This Hallmark holiday film is very meta: a gently self-mocking send-up of the formulaic Hallmark romances that concern the Christmas season. Good for Hallmark!

Emily (Maggie Lawson) is determined to achieve a "perfect" Christmas, using the five rules her mother gave her. Her family, however, has other plans, due to their focus on other personal issues, like a pressure-filled job (with a Scrooge-like boss), a desire to create music, and coping with peer pressure. Just when Emily is about to give up, she finds a star with an inscription that promises to fulfill a wish, and her life is visited by Sugar Plum, an iconic character on the Harmony Home Channel, which is a Hallmark-like television network.

Sugar Plum (Janel Parrish) is an excessively cheerful character with a Pollyannish outlook on life. Being a fictitious character, she has only known success, mostly by following her "Book of Rules". Hallmark viewers will recognize most of the rules; it's a clever, funny contrivance. Not surprisingly, Emily learns some lessons about relationships, ideals, and happiness.

Janel Parrish is perfect as Sugar Plum, embodying a fairy tale personality. She's one can-do gal. As the story develops, Maggie Lawson settles into her role, and the duo is great fun together.

Hallmark hits a homerun with this comedic tale that tweaks its own memes and plot conventions.

I am pretty sure this movie is what you call a parody. It is a Hallmark movie making fun of Hallmark Christmas movies. And the first thing you need to know is that there are rules. Sugarplum keeps sounding them off a little like Gibb's rules in NCIS but much more fun. Janel Parrish is like a Christmas fairy on steroids. Way overacted. But it works because it is supposed to be way too much.

Maggie Lawson's Emily is kind of a Christmas fairy wannabe, that is a Sugarplum wannabe. She has Christmas lists and aspirations but her family just isn't into it. There are Christmas movies where Emily would be put into the TV movie world of Perfection, but this movie switches that and Sugarplum from the movies appears in Emily's world and brings lots of fun chaos with her. The Christmas movie cliches come through like a tidal wave. Even my favorite Christmas movie cliche - a snowball fight.

The acting is what it needs to be where, or who, it needs to be. The dialogue is sizzling.

Something interesting to me is Rule 39. I've noticed it in countless movies but didn't realize it reached the status of a Christmas rule. The endless wardrobes in too small a bag.

Lest you think that Sugarplum's assertions that her rules only have positive outcomes, that changes. The movie even starts to get into real life family issues.

One of the last scenes is a musical performance of an original song by Kyra Leroux as Nina.

I believe this to be the best Hallmark Christmas movie of 2024, maybe ever actually. The level of campiness and outrageousness while at the same time honoring the tropes of the holiday movie genre were impressively balanced. Sometimes, when Hallmark tries to be tongue in cheek, it can be cheesy but this one was hilarious, I was chuckling the whole time. I hope they make more movies like this, tons of interesting plot and emotional development for all the characters plus an ending that isn't rushed and scrambled in the last five minutes. And more Janel Parrish! She needs to be at Lacey Chabert level, I would love to see her lead more movies!

I know people justifiably mock Hallmark Christmas movies but what about a Hallmark movie that mocks Hallmark movies? Sugarplummed is just that movie. It's funny and (unlike many of them) really smartly written.

Sugarplummed is about a mom that wishes for the perfect Christmas (which she always wishes for). But this time, Sugarplum, a character in a series of Christmas movies magically shows up to help the mom get her wish. She comes with a book of hard and fast rules like Flannel is a Natural Aphrodisiac and When a Big City Girl Meets a Small Town Bachelor, They're Guaranteed to Fall in Love and Get Married.

The kids are not perfect and they're not annoying. This time they're sarcastically funny. In what Hallmark movie does a kid walk in to the perfectly decorated room and say, "Why does it look like the North Pole threw up in here?"

I highly recommend this one!