Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Christmas Cupid aka The 900th Ripoff



I have a confession to make: I have approximately 900 ABC Family movies in my Netflix queue right now and a good portion of them are Christmas movies. You should see the look on my boyfriend’s face when he comes home and finds me curled up with a holiday movie in August.

“Christmas Cupid” centers on a publicist named Sloane (Christina Milan, “Ghosts of Girlfriends Past”)who has her hands full. Not only does she have to baby-sit an out of control young actress, Catlin (Ashley Benson, “Pretty Little Liars”), but she also has to deal with working with her ex-boyfriend and sleeping with her boss. Catlin’s newest movie, Snow Angel, is set for a Christmas release date, and her boyfriend/boss Andrew keeps riding her about making it perfect.

Sloane is so focused on her job that she doesn’t realize that people around her have pretty sucky lives. Her best friend recently opened a restaurant with her husband but business is so bad that she’s about to shut it down. Her mother wants nothing more than to spend Christmas with her, and takes her shopping without mentioning that her most recent husband isn’t coming home for the holidays.

Her life gets turned upside down when Catlin goes out partying, chokes on a martini olive, and dies on the dance floor. Catlin comes back to haunt Sloane and make her realize what her shitty decisions mean to others. Sloane manages to cross paths with Patrick (Chad Michael Murray, “One Tree Hill”), the love of her college years. She runs into him in the hospital where he works as a doctor when she needs confirmation of Catlin’s death.

Catlin introduces her to Brad, who was her first boyfriend. Brad serves as the ghost of Christmas past, taking her on a tour of her old relationships. We learn that Patrick got a good job in Iowa, but she ran away and left him a note because she couldn’t deal with moving, even though he was about to propose. She just keeps trading boyfriends for someone richer or more powerful. Catlin tells her that Andrew is cheating on her and shows her proof that money and power mean nothing.

Sloane confronts Andrew who admits that he did cheat but that they would be a real power couple. She dumps him and asks Patrick out on a date. Even though she thinks that he could be the one, she decides to marry Andrew when he interrupts their date with a proposal.

Her co-worker Jason shows up that night because he was her most recent boyfriend. He shows her that her restaurant owning friend is almost broke, and he shows her how sad her mom is sitting at home. She also gets the chance to see how sad Patrick was when she ran off with Andrew, and she learns that Andrew was talking on the phone to someone even as he proposed.

Sloane attempts to make things better, but when that fails, Santa appears. He shows her the future. Her mother has a house full of dogs because her husband left her, her best friend now works as a waitress because her restaurant failed, and she is in the hospital dying alone. Sloane argues with Santa until he reveals himself as Andrew. He tells her that they married, but she eventually left him and took part of his business.

When Sloane wakes the next day, she makes up with her mom and drops her off at a friend’s house. She gets to Catlin’s memorial/movie premier in time to drop gift certificates to her friend’s restaurant in everyone’s gift bags, and she even lets some of her employees go home to spend time with their families.

After breaking up with Andrew, she makes up with Jason and apologizes for using him. She then rushes to see Patrick, apologizes to him, and they kiss. As the movie ends, she takes him to her friend’s house, and they all have dinner together. Sorry for the lack of snark, but I totally liked this one!