by Noella Noelophile®
(Royalty-free image by Jill Wellington from Pixabay.)
That’s it? Already?
No, not really.
December 25th may be over. But Christmas, technically, continues until Twelfth Night–January 6th.
With that in mind, here is a Netflix movie we found a lot of fun, for this Christmas season: Christmas Inheritance.
While this isn’t a new film (according to Netflix’s webpage, it was released in 2017) it was new to me, this year. And it’s a good time, with fun performances by a cast who clearly enjoyed crafting their interpretations of a familiar theme.
(Royalty-free image by Robert Jones from Pixabay.)
In the opening scenes, Manhattan corporate heiress Ellen Langford (Eliza Taylor) “has everything”: a fancy apartment, a handsome fiance, Gray (Michael Xavier) and hopes of helming Home and Hearth, the gift business her father and his partner have built from the ground up, upon her dad’s retirement. She also has a sense of fun and considerable intelligence.
What she lacks, though, are leadership skills. Ellen has never had to take initiative or work to earn anything–and it shows.
After her antics during a Christmas fundraiser–a great scene which establishes her likability and sporting nature–her father, Jim (Neil Crone) seriously questions her ability to take over at Home and Hearth. To his mind, his pampered and irresponsible daughter just isn’t CEO material.
However, he does give her a chance to redeem herself. Yearly, Jim sends a Christmas letter to his partner Zeke.
This year, he tells Ellen, if she will hand-deliver the letter, he just might reconsider.
Ellen is onboard and she sets off to catch her–wait, her what?
(Royalty-free image by PublicDomainPictures from Pixabay.)
Bus. To the ultimate small town: Snow Falls, which looks like any number of upstate New York towns.
And the catch: Jim confiscates Ellen’s credit cards and sends her off with just $20 in her pocket. She will have to manage on her own initiative, for the first time in her life. Plus, she’s to travel incognito.
Her adventures, from there, are what make the journey fun. Starting with her search for the bus’s “stewardess”, after boarding.
(Royalty-free image by Ioannis Ioannidis from Pixabay.)
Predictably, when Ellen arrives in Snow Falls, the bus station is sneeze-and-you’ll-miss-it small. The weather is less than welcoming (appropriately, the snow is falling). And the town has one cab, driven by local Jake Collins (Jake Lacy), a man-of-all-trades who also manages Snow Falls Guest House Inn–which is Ellen’s destination.
As in the tradition of romances, Ellen cannot stand Jake on sight. She just wants to deliver that letter and get the heck out of Snow Falls. But Zeke isn’t around, Jake has no idea where he’s gone or when he’ll be back, and Ellen must adapt to her new surroundings.
(Royalty-free image by Jae Rue from Pixabay.)
Gradually, her annoyance at being “stuck” in the small town gives way to interest and exploration. Gradually, she and Jake find common ground. And Ellen’s natural skills and creativity begin to come to the fore, as she begins to grow in her unfamiliar environment, just before Christmas.
A favorite performance, from this particular movie, comes from Andie MacDowell, who shines as warmhearted and knowledgeable Debbie Collins, proprietor of Debbie’s Diner. The scene where Ellen tries to fake her way through Christmas baking is great. However, my all-time favorite sequence comes shortly thereafter–as Ellen comes into her own, using her people skills and powers of persuasion to benefit the local Christmas fundraiser. The music for this particular sequence is classic–and no, I won’t ruin it by saying anything more!
Grab the popcorn and check out Christmas Inheritance; it’s likely to leave you feeling “Christmasy”, whether today is December 26th or sometime in mid-April.