Before he leaves for the holidays, Hugo gives his boss an ultimatum: make him a partner at the law firm by New Year's or he'll be looking for a new job. Hugo and his BFF Madelyn head to Milwaukee to spend Christmas with Hugo's vivacious mother Kate and his Army soldier brother Aiden, but the first thing he does is run into Patrick, a hunky Christmas tree delivery guy. Back in high school, Hugo had a crush on Patrick, who was both popular and openly gay, and Hugo was neither. After Patrick mistakes Madelyn for Hugo's wife, things get cleared up and, while Patrick seems like he'd like to hang out more with Hugo, Hugo remains a bit stand-offish, feeling like Patrick is way out of his league, especially when he finds out that Patrick has taken a very early retirement after he sold, for several million dollars, a popular app he invented. But what Hugo doesn't know is that good old Mom has been pulling strings and is actively trying to set him up with Patrick. And if that's not enough meddling, she's also decided to get her other son Aiden interested in Madelyn. So inevitably, Hugo and Patrick begin striking sparks, leading to a very romantic kiss beneath the Northern Lights. But when Hugo gets the news that he has gotten his promotion and will be sent to London to head up a new office, their relationship seems doomed--or is it?
This is, as far as I can determine, the first holiday-themed TV-movie romance to feature a same-sex couple front and center. As such, I was quite pleased that it works so well. Surely there will be some very woke queer people who will be unhappy that the movie isn't more edgy or subversive (the homosexuality of Hugo and Patrick is a given and they seem to be accepted by everyone in town). But the real point here is that the conservative Christmas romance genre has been opened up enough to allow a gay couple to partake of the same conventions as straight couples have: high-powered big-city lawyer goes home and falls for a man who works with his hands; they have a possible kiss moment halfway through that gets (unrealistically) short-circuited; an obstacle rears its head at about the 90 minute mark; but all is resolved in the last five minutes. The straight couple, Aiden and Madelyn, become the supporting characters, and Mom is played for comic relief. There is a nice subplot involving Hugo's discovery that a late founding father of the town was in a same-sex relationship with his "traveling companion," but otherwise, this is a fairly standard Christmas romance plot. The ending [Spoiler!] is happy but oddly unsatisfying--unless I missed something, we're not sure how Hugo and Patrick will work out a long-distance thing.
The acting is standard TV-movie acting (not meant to be dismissive, just descriptive). The boyish looking Ben Lewis (William Clayton on superhero show Arrow) is as cute as a groundbreaking romance actor needs to be, though he's never able to pull off the gravitas of a high-powered attorney--a problem in many of these Christmas movies. The unthreateningly sexy Blake Lee is Patrick, and the chemistry the two have is undoubtedly helped by the fact that they are married to each other in real life. Fran Drescher is amusing as the mom--the funniest line has to do with someone jokingly referring to her thick Milwaukee accent. Ellen Wong is fine as the friend; Chad Connell seems a little too intense in the beginning as the soldier brother--I kept thinking he was going to snap from some war trauma, though he eases up a bit later. Overall, an impressive new step for the Christmas TV movie. Pictured at top are Lee and Lewis. [Lifetime]
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