Dec 18, 2019

On the eighteenth day of Christmas...

... a husband takes over the blog post (my husband, to be exact).

24 days of Christmas

Each day of Christmas, I'll be reviewing a Christmas movie and sharing a new Christmas outfit. Today was a typical Australian summer day - 43 Celsius and hot enough for the air conditioner to give up for the day. Anyone want to trade hemispheres for the rest of the holidays?

Today my long-suffering husband has hijacked the blog, to give his "honest movie review" of the Christmas movie 'Frozen in Love' Complete with his very own Christmas t-shirt! So, friends, romans, countrymen, I will pass you over to his very capable hands...and may God take pity on my soul...

To be clear, she calls me her "long-suffering" husband as a description of my life, not as a label to help her distinguish between her different husbands - I am her only husband ... as far as I am aware ...

Here we are at day eighteen, and Christmas is flying towards us. With only one week to go, the lights are lighting, the cookies are cooking, and the mistletoe is...toeing? (Actually, I don't think we have mistletoe here in Australia). What we do have is heat - and lots of it. 43C degrees of it (just shy of 110F, for our international brethren). With heat records being set across the country, I thought it fitting to review a movie that will cool us all down:

Frozen in Love - 2.5/5 candy canes

Well, if the intention was to cool down, you couldn't get much colder than the on-screen chemistry between these two.

Ah yes, the big heart-warming moment when she realises that she is in love with him (sorry, spoilers?)

"Frozen in Love" sees Rachael Leigh Cook as Mary, the owner of a struggling book-shop and Niall Matter as Adam, a "bad boy" ice-hockey player. Mary has to promote her book shop, or risk losing the family business forever. Adam has to revive his image, or risk his illustrious ice-hockey career...but wait, what if you paired them together? Maybe Adam could help promote this local book shop? And maybe in doing so Mary will help re-build his image with his local fans? It's just so crazy it could work!

A classic opposites-attract story, which really doesn't have all that much more going for it. The main roles were actually acted pretty well, though Rachael Leigh Cook could work on looking less angry all the time.

Sorry Rachael, that's just my opinion...please don't hurt me...

The movie is, as Izzie says, "deliciously predictable". It's a classic boy-and-girl meet, boy-and-girl hate each other, boy-and-girl are forced to work together, boy acts like an idiot, girl looks angry, boy-and-girl realise they are more alike than they first thought, boy-and-girl fall in love, everyone lives happily ever after.

Blegh.

Actually, the movie wasn't as bad as I make it out to be, and it did have its funny, sweet moments ... unfortunately, they were all a little forgettable. In this crazy, crazy world of holiday cheer and Baby Yoda's, movies need more than a predictable storyline and okay-ish acting to cut the mustard (so to speak). In fact, until I wrote this bit, I actually thought this was another one of those movies that doesn't appear to have an ending (read: I fell asleep during it). But actually, I did watch all of it, it was just a little...meh...

But what do I know? Maybe I just don't appreciate the subtle art of predictable love stories? Maybe it just wasn't my kind of movie? Maybe my expectations are just too high, especially after some of the more brilliant ones I have experienced (Klaus, anyone?) Or maybe I've just got my Grinch on overload this year?

And yes, for the purists, it turns out that this was not strictly a Christmas movie - however, it contains snow, and that's about as much as many other 'real' Christmas movies have...

That's probably enough from me, Izzie's giving me another one of those classic "stop doing what you are doing" death stares...oh no, sorry, that's just Rachael again.