Christmas 2020 Reviews: Day 13 - Same Time, Next Christmas (2019)

So here's a somewhat controversial one.

Back in June this year, Lea Michele was exposed by some of her former co-workers for her bullying behaviour on set of projects she worked on, notably from when she starred in Glee. This behaviour was originally confronted by Samantha Marie Ware, an African-American actress, who reported on Twitter that Michele made a remark to others that she would try to "shit in her wig" if she could. This, along with reports of unpleasant behaviour towards some of her other black co-stars led backlash against Michele, and claims that she was racist.

Yet, before all of this happened, she made a little made-for-TV Christmas film where her character's love interest was a black man. So let's see how this plays out.

Same Time, Next Christmas follows Olivia Anderson, who goes to a Hawaii resort every Christmas with her family. There, the Anderson's befriend another family who also go to Hawaii every Christmas, the Williams'. The Williams family have a son the same age as Olivia named Jeffrey. The two children become friends, and spending time together in Hawaii each Christmas is the highlight of their year. When they become teenagers, the pair develop feelings for each other and kiss. However, after that Christmas, Jeff's mother tragically dies, and he and his family never return to Hawaii. Olivia tries to reach out to Jeff daily, for a long time after this, but he never replies to her calls, and she is left devastated.

Lea Michele plays the adult Olivia, a successful architect who still goes to Hawaii every year with her family. One year, Jeff (played by Charles Michael Davis) and his family return to the resort. Olivia is thrilled that her first love is back in her life, but things are complicated. Jeff is now a father, and separated from his wife, while Olivia has a new love of her own. Have their lives changed too much, or are these childhood sweethearts going to find a way to renew their love?

I didn't like this one, for several reasons. The main romance was the essential issue here. When Jeff's mother dies, Olivia is more upset that Jeff isn't texting her back, more than sad for him that his mother (who by the way, Olivia had known for several years by that point) has died. I understand that there would be some emotional pain not hearing back from your first love, but I wish she would have realised (or even have one of her parents tell her) that Jeff needed space.

When the pair are reunited years later though, none of this pain Olivia experienced is of any relevance to her or anyone, because she is so utterly and obviously smitten with Jeff, she's forgotten all about it. Lea Michele is a fine actress, but the amount of lust she projects as Olivia for Jeff is almost ridiculous. She seems desperate.

Meanwhile, Jeff likes Olivia, but he's got bigger things going on. Firstly, he's married. During the first Christmas he's reunited with Olivia (because this part of the film takes place over three years), he's separated from his wife and kisses Olivia, only to later decide that he wants to give his marriage another try for the sake of his daughter.

That should be it. You shouldn't be interested in the guy anymore. And yet, Olivia is still very much interested, but tries to move on. During the year after this event, Olivia begins dating another man named Gregg, who we know we're not supposed to root for because he spells his name with three G's and yet we never see him with any delicious sausage rolls.

Anyway.

Olivia is clearly with Gregg because she wants to get over Jeff, which is just a poor reason to be with anyone. Of course they can't make him a nice, actually potentially decent match for Olivia, because this film is very insistent that the childhood sweethearts who only had one kiss and then didn't see each other for a decade are soulmates. Instead, they make Gregg the only adult take part in a children's competition, where he takes it deadly seriously and sulks a bit when he loses. He also keeps trying to help Olivia with her career, which is supposed to be a bad thing, like he cares too much about work? But the things he's offering to help her with are actually really thoughtful and generous. It just makes Olivia and her family seem a bit rude for dismissing it all of the time.

And the best part? By this time where Olivia is in a relationship with Gregg, guess who went and got divorced? Yep, Jeff is now single, and is upset to find out that Olivia isn't anymore. Worse for him still, Olivia gets engaged to Gregg that year.

I won't spoil the rest of the plot, but you understand the idea of this film: two characters who are supposedly meant to be together are continually being torn away from each other.

I'm aware that this criticism comes down to personal preference, but I really don't like this trope. I just get a bit annoyed with the two characters caught up in it and to me, if I'm continually being shown that these characters can't be together, then I don't think that they should be together.

The way this film handles it seems particularly weak to me. As I've already stated a few times, these characters only meet once a year, and there was a ten to fifteen year gap between that happening for a while. They don't ever speak during the rest of the year, and they never have a real catch up about the last few years when they were apart. I just don't believe in the stakes here, which isn't helped by the fact that Michele plays Olivia's investment in Jeff far more intensely than Davis plays Jeff's attraction to Olivia.

Additionally, when these characters do see each other, it's in a beautiful, relaxing location where she walks around in bikinis and he walks around in shorts, his muscles all shiny in the sun, and neither of them have to worry about anything. What would they be like in the real world together though? They barely have anything in common during their time in Hawaii, what will they have in the real world?

This is probably due to all the Christmas films I've had to view for this month, but I'm personally sick to death of the amount of privilege these Christmas films put on show. The Hallmark films are particularly guilty of this. I adore Christmas, but I'm highly aware that it is not a good time of year for everyone. For a lot of people, it's really hard for many reasons. Some people have to spend it on their own, while the media keeps telling us how great it is to spend it with other people that we love. But what about the people who don't have anyone to love, or people who they do love, who can't or won't see them? Others can't afford it, but the consumerism of this holiday is constantly flaunted, particularly in this film. Some people associate Christmas with trauma, like children who grew up in unstable households, who are forced to be together with their family for this one day, which can be stressful. There are many other reasons why Christmas can be a hard time for people. Money is a key one, and this film flaunts the wealth of these characters all over the place, in a way I don't think anyone would find aspirational, and instead somewhat enraging. In this film, we're seeing two families who can go on a luxury holiday every year for Christmas, and there are fun Christmas activities, parties and presents set up for everyone. This all goes unappreciated though, because the female lead is too focused on being in love with a guy who isn't actually that great, and she doesn't even know him very well any more after at least ten years apart. It feels incredibly shallow. However, I will say that out of all the made-for-films I'm looking at this December, I would say that this one has the highest production value. There are some really great locations used within the Hawaii setting.

Another thing I didn't like about this film is how it likes to forget about its minority characters. Olivia has a brother, who's gay and married to a black man. Together, they adopted a white son. That's all great. You never see anything like that in a Hallmark film, not in the ones I've been watching anyway.

Except you don't really see that in this film either. I would estimate that Olivia's brother and his husband have a maximum of two minutes of screen time in this 90 minute film overall. Their son has more screen time than they do, because he can play on the beach with Olivia and be cute I suppose. There are multiple scenes where Olivia is spending time with her parents, notably several scenes where they sunbathe together, and her brother and his husband are never featured, even though their white, apparently straight son is, although that's not for the child to feel guilty about. It's just a bit pathetic and disappointing really.

Similarly, Jeff has a sister, who would also go on holiday with him and their parents every year, but she's barely in the film, which isn't great as she's the only black woman in this, apart from the dead mother.

I was a big Glee fan back in the day, and was curious to see this film to find out what different members of the cast have been up to ever since. The backlash Lea Michele received this year has fizzled out, and from what I've read about it, she isn't racist. It seems she was equally unpleasant to a lot of people on the Glee set. Hopefully she has since learned from all of this, and will work on her behaviour towards others, if only to set an example to her son, who was born this year. She was really talented in Glee, and I can't help but speculate if she hasn't really worked on anything big since then because people in the industry knew of her behaviour when working on that show. I don't know the woman though, so I can only judge her performance.

She's good. Overly keen in expressing Olivia's attraction to Jeff, but otherwise good. There's a scene where Olivia makes a big decision she feels really guilty about, and goes crying to her parents afterwards. I really believe in her sheer guilt and devastation over this decision she had to make. However, with this being not being Lea Michele's fault at all, they make Olivia narrate too much. I'm not a fan of narration in films anyway, because it's generally pointless and often written in such a way that suggests the screenwriter assumes the viewer is too dumb to follow the plot without it. Here though, they have Olivia tell us everything that's happening in the opening, before it cuts to the opening credits where we have to hear more of Lea Michele's voice because she sings the festive song that plays over them. Her singing is great, it's just a lot of one person's voice to be listening to in the first ten minutes of this film.

Everyone else is fine. There are no weak players, but no one else is particularly memorable.

To conclude this review, this is one of the better Hallmark films in terms of production value. However, with a romance that feels pathetic and characters who are so privileged that they are largely unrelatable, there's just not much charm for me to find here, the Christmas kind or otherwise.

THE SCOREBOARD

Would I recommend this film? No.

Christmas quote of the film: "Forget a white Christmas. Christmas vacation for me and my family means Hawaii." - Olivia

Film rating: 4/10