It’s Christmas time, and that means mediocre movies released up the wazoo. Whether it’s Hallmark or some lone director, the people can always experience a bland, generic ride.
This year marked the release of one movie called “The Christmas Mixer”. Released on Dec. 1, this features Leah Kirkup and Jonathan Stoddard playing Dariah Wallace and Sam Bailey respectively.
Dariah gets laid off from her job as a TV show host, and cameraperson Sam getting the same treatment. A spark of inspiration occurs, and Dariah and Sam decide to make a stream series where Dariah bakes all her family recipes, despite her not taking up baking in years. But, turns out, the two like each other, because it’s a romance film.
First, let’s start with the positives, because, as many things as there are wrong with the movie, it actually does a few things right.
For starters, the premise is more unique than most other Christmas movies. It’s great to have a character dynamic where a TV show host gets to have all their stage presence be transferred to a new medium while she struggles with a skill she’s long forgotten, and a cameraperson who struggles to have any stage presence at all. In fact, in the first scene where Sam goes on camera, Stoddard does a good job portraying how the character would feel awkward while live on camera.
Another thing the movie does right is one scene where they depict the fans of Dariah’s streams. In this scene, Sam and Dariah learn that their fans absolutely ship them, and are fighting over ship names. It’s not a spectacularly accurate depiction, but it’s a funny reality of fanbases regardless.
The things the movie does right, though, are only in isolated scenes. The movie has a lot more things that it does wrong.
The depiction of streaming in this one is not good. Editing like it’s a scripted video in the middle of it, a stream chat with messages that pop up instantly in reaction to the events on screen and a splash of emojis that occasionally pop up in reaction to events. They are nitpicks, but they break the immersion a ton.
The cuts in the movie have a weird, stilted way where they focus on multiple shots of the environment. This can be good when used right, but it just feels awkward here. In the beginning, they use this type of cut when transitioning between Dariah going to the unnamed higher-up’s office and then her walking out after getting fired. This just makes the scene more confusing and less impactful.
But the worst part, bar none, is the story composition. The dialogue will outright say Dariah and Sam were good parts of the television channel they were a part of, but barely show it. They’ll interject random bits of backstory for a character, Nana Shirley, that have no real relation to the story nor mean anything other than being a side plot. Then they have a conflict of Sam getting a job opportunity at his hometown, so he leaves. Problem is, this is introduced over an hour into the movie, right near the end. The ending itself is a whole “everyone made it for the holidays” with no explanation as to why or how they got there.
The Christmas Mixer is another Christmas movie that tries to be original and creative, but falls flat in execution. It’s an admirable attempt, but there’s so many things holding it back that it just feels like yet another generic, mediocre Christmas movie.
