Somewhere in a large, lovely and beautifully decorated afterlife realm, there are dozens of ghosts who are given assignments every Christmas to come to earth to "scrooge" people, that is, to instill the Christmas spirit into scroogey people. They make a point of calling it scrooging even though it's really anti-scrooging, and this is just the first of a number of plot points that don't make sense, though the movie is generally charming enough to survive them. We see Roy, Katherine and Arlene, ghosts of, respectively, Christmas past, present and future, complete the de-scrooging of a singer named Susan Kraine in the town of Hartford. As it happens, in her earthly life many years ago, Katherine lived in Hartford and she takes a detour to visit a pub called the Rooty Tooty which she used to frequent but which is now closed and dilapidated. As she walks around reminiscing, a handsome young man named Peter Baron walks in; we learn that he is a rich man's son who spends his off-time feeding the homeless across the street, and since his family owns the building, he stores his food and supplies there. Peter asks if he can help her, and Katherine is quite surprised because no one can see the ghosts except the people being de-scrooged. They clearly have chemistry, but she has to skedaddle off to the afterlife before their meet-cute can fully bloom. The ghosts get their assignments for next Christmas, and these three get, guess who, Peter Baron.
A year later they appear to him in his apartment. Of course, he's freaked out, because: 1) three ghosts have materialized; 2) he recognizes Katherine from a year ago; 3) he is already an awfully nice guy. He's the opposite of his father Robert, the head of a grocery store chain, who is all business and no sentiment, and has very little regard for his son whom he loves but can't relate to. In the present day, Peter is still intimidated by Robert but has remained working for him because he still has hopes of getting Dad's respect. What he really wants to do is convert the Rooty Tooty into a place to feed and house homeless people. And yes, rest assured, the two will become close by the end of the movie. But that's only half the story. The rom-com half involves Peter and Katherine who are obviously falling in love. But she's dead, right? And, as we find out, despite looking young and beautiful, she's the same age as Peter's late grandparents and was best friends with Peter's grandmother. The ghosts learn that they were actually supposed to be de-scrooging Robert, not Peter. Have no fears, a happy ending is in store for all, even the living Peter and the dead Katherine.
This is a cute Christmas fantasy (though oddly it's not one of the more Christmassy feeling Hallmark movies, despite references to the movie Elf) with a nice set-up and great looking leads. Which is why it's frustrating that the script is fairly weak with lots of plotholes here and there. The rules that apply to the de-scrooging ghosts are vague and illogical. The three ghosts each get dossiers on the subject's past, present and future, but are not supposed to discuss their case with each other, despite the fact that they take an entire year to research their subject. The father-son conflict feels like something that could (and should) have been resolved years ago, and for all those years of bad feeling, the resolution happens quickly and to my mind, not terribly convincingly. The acting is so-so. Lori Tan Chin (Arlene) is irritatingly one-note and Christopher Innvar (Robert) has no charisma and is so low-key, he barely seems to be acting. Beth Leavel, the singer from the opening scene who returns near the end, won a Tony for The Drowsy Chaperone and she's wasted in an unimportant role. But Reginald VelJohnson is fun as Roy, and the leads, both of whom are new to me, are quite good. Kim Matula is wholesomely sexy and throws herself into her role. Even better is Ian Harding (pictured at right), sweet, charming, and vanilla handsome (that's a compliment in my book). The two work together so well that they single-handedly (quadruply-handedly?) make the movie worth watching. Pictured at top are Matula and Harding. [Hallmark Channel]
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