By Geno McGahee
I like how most Hallmark movies have an asshole that absolutely hates Christmas. In LET IT SNOW, we got Ted Beck (Alan Thicke), the owner of Falcon, a real estate acquisitions company that has his eyes on Snow Valley Lodge, a resort that specializes in Christmas. Ted won’t have that. He doesn’t want families. He doesn’t want Christmas. He wants to bulldoze the whole place and make it his own.
Stephanie (Candice Cameron Bure), the daughter of Ted, is sent to the resort to gather information. She arrives and meets Brady (Jesse Hutch) and the initial meeting is quite negative. That happens in Hallmark Christmas movies. The main characters that fall in love initially do not like each other.
Poor Paul (Dan Willmott). He owned the resort and sold it to Ted, trusting the guy. He didn’t know that he was going to be bent over and done dry by an old friend. Paul is slowly losing his marbles and is getting old and he can’t get along with his son, Brady. The two had different ideas for the resort and when they couldn’t agree, Paul sold, thinking that Ted would keep it as is. All you have to do is talk to Ted for two seconds to realize he’s a complete dickhead, but Paul didn’t see it. Dummy.
The resort has all sorts of traditions and despite her lack of Christmas experience, Stephanie starts enjoying her time there. Everyone has such a good time there, but it’s over the top. Everyone cannot stop smiling. No matter what people are doing, the entire mob of people are smiling as big as they can. One old guy smiled so big just hanging an ornament and the crowd was so impressed by it.
Brady is the man of a million smiles. For a guy with a miserable relationship with his dad, he can’t stop smiling. As his relationship with Stephanie starts to develop, he smiles even bigger and starts doing shit like sledding and singing. He starts to realize that he should have taken over the resort, but it’s too little too late.
Stephanie gets really really weird at times. The Christmas spirit hits her hard, but she starts partaking in some really strange ones. At one point, she does this thing where she has to figure out who she’s going to marry and has to spin three times standing on the bed and throw her shoes and do some other shit. She has a deranged smile and is reading the instructions out loud. I know that they are doing this to explain it to the audience BUT who the hell reads shit out loud when they are alone? She dreams about marrying Brady, which was the purpose of this bed-spinning, shoe-throwing thing.
After living at the resort for a few days, Stephanie decides that it’s perfect the way that it is, but she has to convince her dad. When he shows up people wish him a merry Christmas, but he doesn’t reply. He hates the holiday that much. He’s the only one not smiling from ear to ear. He’s not having it.
When Stephanie puts her foot down, she gets fired and her dad gets out of there and continues the plan to destroy the place. We learn that he hated Christmas ever since his wife died. What an asshole to take out his misery on the rest of the world, but when you’re depressed, you hate seeing people happy. He walks in hating life and sees all these assholes having the times of their lives really got to him, but seeing poor confused Paul in the corner brought him joy. He fucked that guy over pretty good.
We get some more strange behavior from Stephanie on Christmas morning when she wakes up and acts like a 5-year-old, running around and screaming “it’s Christmas.” She even asks if Santa brought her anything. It was odd, but Bure got the screenplay and direction. It wasn’t her fault that she had to act like there was something really wrong with her. The director was the same guy that probably told everyone to smile as big as they can and hold it while they sing. That has to be a pain in the ass. I can’t imagine holding the biggest smile ever and singing Silent Night as the same time.
Ted starts to realize that he’s been a total dickhead asshole and does what anyone would do to make things right with their daughter. He dresses up like Santa and shows up at the resort and is now the happiest asshole in the world. That’s too much of a jump for me. He’s been a pissed off prick for the whole time, but then, all of a sudden, he’s the happiest guy ever. There should have been a slower move to this point I think, but the screenwriter was probably thinking “how the hell do I end this” and said fuck it and had the guy do a 180.
LET IS SNOW is absurd but watchable. I would like to go to a resort where people smile all the time. I recommend it, kind of.
