I need to open with a disclaimer: I didn't see the first 30 minutes of this one. But I'm guessing they wouldn't change my opinion much. That said, let's dive in.
In
A Very Merry Mix-Up, Alicia Witt gets engaged and heads across country to meet her in-laws to-be. Her fiancé can't come with her, so she's forced to make the trip alone. Naturally, she meets a handsome man who has the same last name as her fiancé and who she believes to be his brother. Thus, the mix-up and the resulting complications.
By the time she realizes her potential brother-in-law is not actually her potential brother-in-law, they've already spent nearly 2 days together. Obviously, they're in love.
Actually, what's obvious is that she should question why she had no idea what her fiance's family looks like. What's obvious is that she should wonder how she agreed to marry a man who only wants to use her as leverage in a property deal. What's obvious is that she comes across as a dim-witted heroine who's barely capable of making adult decisions.
The end of these movies is always predictable, but I found myself siding with the money-obsessed fiancé more than the main character. Yes, he's the villain because he wants to demolish a city block to make way for new condos. I get it: he's the Grinch.
But she wasn't letting logic in at all. He was offering her $3.5 million dollars for her father's antique store and storefront space to open a new location. It takes the romance out of it, but that's just good business. Sentimental value only goes so far, even at Christmas.
On a side note, you may remember Alicia Witt as the red-headed clarinet girl from
Mr. Holland's Opus. I also recently watched her in another Hallmark Channel movie,
Backyard Wedding.
Of the three roles, I like her best in
Mr. Holland's Opus. It might have been Richard Dreyfuss. Or it might be that in both her Hallmark roles Alicia plays a woman who changes her mind about who she wants to marry in a very short time after dating someone for a very long time.
I know: that's the stuff rom-coms are made of, but these films made me question my love of the rom-com genre. These movies made it impossible for me to get behind a woman who jumps so quickly from one marriage prospect to another. I can't do it when she knew the first guy for years but the movie makes it obvious from the get-go she shouldn't have dated him more than 3 times.
Essentially,
A Very Merry Mix-Up failed to do what movies like
While You Were Sleeping and
You've Got Mail did flawlessly. It's okay for Sandra Bullock to switch from Peter Gallagher to Bill Pullman because she only loved Peter Gallagher from afar. It's okay for Meg Ryan to break up with Greg Kinnear because they obviously shared a love of words and the break-up was mutual.
My disappointment in
A Very Merry Mix-Up also stems from the vague resemblance this movie bears to
the fake Christmas romance created last year for a Sears commercial, a movie I wholeheartedly wish were real. Maybe I would have liked
A Merry Mix-Up better if it took place entirely at the airport. Probably not.
