A CALIFORNIA CHRISTMAS (2020)

Joseph is the playboy son of a wealthy woman who is about to give up on him ever amounting to anything. She gives him one last chance: go to California and meet with a stubborn landowner who won't sell her family farmland. Joseph and Leo (his assistant—or valet or butler or bosom buddy, as it's never quite clear what his official function is) head out to the small desert town to meet with Wendy, the landowner, and her daughter Callie. On the way, Joseph spills coffee on his clothes and changes into a casual t-shirt and jeans (that are too tight for him, but who cares because he wears them well), and Callie mistakes him for a new farmhand named Manny. Joseph decides not to correct her, thinking that he can soften her up for the big sales pitch later. The dairy farm work is hard but he manages to keep up. He discovers that Callie's father and her boyfriend both died in a car accident that she survived, and her mom Wendy is dying of cancer, so Callie is unrealistically desperate to hang on the farm, which her father was hoping to turn into a winery, despite the fact that the bank is going to foreclose in a month. Of course, hard work and a growing respect for Callie make Joseph a better person, but everything might come crashing down when Mom comes calling, threatening to expose his charade.

I sometimes wish that Hallmark's Christmas movies would shake their formulas up a little, and this movie, made for Netflix, does exactly that. It takes the Hallmark/Lifetime template (big city person made better by small-town person) and makes it a little more serious, throws in a few vulgarities, and gets its hero to take off his shirt a couple of times. This leads to some tone clashes, with scenes involving the mom's cancer diagnosis followed by jokey scenes with secondary characters. It's interesting but a bit jarring. Joseph is portrayed explicitly as promiscuous—the opening scene has him bidding "good morning, goodbye" to his latest one-night stand—though still charming and fairly squeaky-clean. There's a sullen ex-boyfriend who comes off as far more threatening than any Hallmark ex—he gets into a bar fight with Joseph, and seems like he could go further off the deep end, though he doesn't.

My favorite departure here involves Leo, the assistant (Ali Afshar) who, though not explicitly played as gay, winds up in a sort of bromance with Manny, the actual farmhand (David Del Rio). In the beginning, Manny comes off as a threat to Joseph's plans, but soon, Leo and Manny are best buds, playing video games and comparing their wine palates. Honestly, I was more interested in these two than in the main couple because it was a relationship we don't see in these romance movies. At 100 minutes, this is too long and, despite its edgier elements, just as predictable as any TV romance movie. But I kept watching partly because the male lead, Josh Swickard, is ridiculously handsome (see above right). His real-life wife, Lauren Swickard, is very good as Callie (and she also wrote the movie). In general, the acting is a notch above average. You may notice I never mentioned Christmas in the plot summary. That's because the Christmas setting is barely there, seeming like an afterthought. There is a sequel though I'm not sure I need to see it. Different from but not necessarily better than the norm. [Netflix]