Christmas on TV: The 12 Men of Christmas

In one of my favorite Doris Day movies, The Thrill of It All, Doris is married to obstetrician James Garner but suddenly finds herself as the spokeswoman for "Happy Soap." In her new role, she does a live commercial during a Playhouse-style variety show where the same actors act out different scenes and characters each week. After watching for two or three weeks, her children at home say to their housekeeper, "They did that story last week." This youngster's observations are correct. Each week the woman gets mad and throws her drink in Carl Reiner's face and he yells basically the same line back at her every time. Even Doris eventually notices the similarities in each week's show and comments on it to one of the show's executives. His response? "The audience isn't smart enough to recognize the similarities." But as the children already demonstrated, the audience totally knows.

I got that feeling myself while watching The 12 Men of Christmas. At first I was praising its original premise: a PR executive moves to Montana and launches a campaign to raise money by shooting a calendar of the town's firefighters. Sounds a little sketchy but totally Lifetime.


But about a third of the way through the movie, I realized that the sexy fireman calendar and the Christmas setting are staying afloat in a thinly veiled Pride and Prejudice remake. Kristin Chenoweth's E.J. Baxter (bearing roughly the same initials as Elizabeth Bennett) meets Will Albrecht (an offshoot of Fitzwilliam Darcy) while he's skinny-dipping in his own swimming pool, much like when Elizabeth encounters Mr. Darcy coming out of the water at Pemberley. So naturally she thinks he's too proud or prejudiced, and he thinks the same thing of her. She starts dating a firefighter with ugly California surfer boy hair who confesses his shady past dealings with Will to her. Will later awkwardly confesses to E.J. that he's attracted to her; she rejects him. She stops dating the Mr. Wickham character for no apparent reason, realizes she's attracted to Will, overcomes a few more obstacles to be with him, and they all live happily ever after.

I don't hate this movie; I just wish it weren't so dependent upon the Pride and Prejudice allusions because I think it would have been a fine movie without them. Or it at least should have a title that acknowledges the allusion like Christmas and Prejudice or Pride and Presents. Kristin Chenoweth demonstrates all her quirky charm that won her a Tony (aside from actually singing anything), and the some of the men in the calendar are very worthy of eye candy status. Also watch for Anna Chlumsky of My Girl and My Girl 2 and the beautiful scenery of shooting on location in Montana.