It’s October which means we’re once again nearing the dawn of Hallmark’s Countdown to Christmas, programming that somehow manages to be an affront to both God and Satan. However, before diving into this year’s crop of WASPs kissing in a tinseled gazebo, I’m going to pay homage to the scary season by watching Hallmark’s original film, 3 Bed, 2 Bath, 1 Ghost. It’s not scary, but it’s got a ghost in it which is enough to qualify as Halloween-themed for me!
Synopsis:
A 1920’s ghost refuses to leave estate agent Anna’s newly listed home. Worse, the spirit is convinced she cannot “pass over” until she gets Anna back together with her ex. Starring Julie Gonzalo, Chris McNally and Madeleine Arthur.
It seems that “unfinished business” in this film means that Anna and her ex didn’t get it on.
RECAP
The film begins with a bunch of sassy ladies doing the devil’s dance: the Charleston.
Everyone is dressed in their finest Spirit Halloween Flapper costumes and celebrating the 25th birthday of Ruby. In the midst of all the festivities with Ruby’s wealthy parents and 1920s gal pals, a young chauffeur named Charlie catches the birthday girl’s eye. She meets with him in the driveway to tell him that although she loves him, he’s too poor to make it work. He dejectedly drops the flower bouquet he bought for Ruby onto the floor.
Fast forward 100 years and Ruby’s grand estate is up for sale.
We meet our actual Hallmark Heroine Anna who is leaving her old job to start selling houses with her dad. While packing up her work mugs, she is interrupted by Hallmark Hunk Elliot, her former business and sexual partner. We’re supposed to think he’s nice because he restores historic houses, but he makes sure to make an unnecessary jab about Anna’s decision to break up with him during their conversation.
Anna heads to meet her dad at her first real estate listing. Her dad thinks she’s ready despite only having obtained her license the week prior.
The house has been sitting empty for 70 years so he’s giving the newbie agent a little over two weeks to sell it. That’s just good business.
Anna explores the house and immediately starts taking paintings down. Her real estate rival Terrence walks in to mess with her head, telling her that the house is jinxed. He offers to take the job if she doesn’t feel confident.
Anna kicks him out to continue tidying up the listing. However, things don’t go according to plan what with all the doors opening and closing by themselves. She goes upstairs to investigate only to find Ruby. The specter is shocked that Anna can see her and runs off. It’s the first ever instance of a ghost being spooked.
Anna, unfazed by whatever the hell she witnessed, heads to the office. She confronts Terrence about the “ghost” incident, saying that he’s trying to play tricks on her. Terrence objects, leaving Anna confused as she heads back to her listing.
Upon hearing a boom in the house, Anna steps into the sitting room and finds Ruby relaxing on a chaise lounge. They get into a short spat about who owns what house until Ruby blurts out that she’s a g-g-ghost!
The junior real estate agent screams, and we smash cut to Anna at the doctor’s office. The doctor sees nothing wrong with his patient and tells her that it’s probably the breakup that’s causing her to see things.
With no medical solutions to speak of, Anna goes back to the mansion to confront Ruby. But while attempting to do so, Elliot pops by. They may be broken up but that doesn’t prevent him from mysteriously knowing where she is at all times.
Anna invites him into the future murder house. Sadly, for Anna, he can’t see ghosts, so she’s stuck trying to get rid of a wraith by herself. Anna marches to her local library to learn more about the woman trapped in her house.
Elliot and Anna have another interaction that Elliot appears to intentionally be making awkward. If she hadn’t already done it, I would tell Anna to dump his stalking ass.
Back at the haunted mansion, our heroine gives the ghost a printout of all her newspaper clippings. Ruby hung out with Hemingway and other old timey people Hallmark viewers might know. She also died in a car accident on her 25th birthday, so that was a bummer.
Anna agitates Ruby by having some guys remove her favorite chaise. Ruby tries to sabotage Anna’s cleaning efforts. While doing so, they both discover that they both dumped their fiancés.
With only nine days left until the open house, Anna meets her father for a coffee to let him know that she’s on track to have everything ready for the big day. He nods and tells her some interested buyers will be coming by that afternoon. If that isn’t enough of a shock to Anna, Elliot walks in.
Elliot makes a snarky remark about not being liked by his ex-future-father-in-law and I’m thinking that the dad is onto something.
Back at the monster house, Anna and Ruby make a truce. Anna will try to sell the home to someone who really deserves it and maybe that’ll set Ruby free. Yeah, ok, whatever works to close that sale.
Ruby commences to spookin’ and after one corny haunted piano trick, manages to get Anna to usher the interested buyers out.
Ruby believes that maybe she needs to fix Anna’s life to finally get out of her flapper outfit and into a halo. The ghost helps Anna get ready for a coffee date with Elliot. While Ruby puts 1920s makeup on her new corporeal friend, they talk about how they met their beaus. After bonding over boys and blush, Anna tricks Ruby into stepping outside, breaking the curse of…Ruby being inside all the time. They decide to go to the coffee date together.
Ruby finally sees the outside world and comments on how many pants are being worn by women. However, there’s been no lady president, so feminism has only gone so far for Ruby. They arrive at the coffee shop.
They have a dumb coffee date. Anna apologizes to him for “quitting” and not communicating. She hopes they can be friends again. They sort of make up and Elliot tells her that he’s moving to Boston forever. He begins to incredibly slowly walk away. But before he steps out of frame, Ruby intervenes which causes the man to turn around and talk to Anna again. They agree to have him look at the mansion as he’s a restoration guy. Anna still loves Elliot.
At the office, Anna tries to convince her dad to let her restore the house instead of sell it. The dad refuses but lets her know that he plans to give her his real estate company.
At Ghost Manor, Elliot brings a tiny measuring tape to make it look like he knows what he’s doing. Terrence pops in to say that he doesn’t like that Anna is just being handed the business. Elliot threatens to give HIM the business if he doesn’t go. Terrence saunters away.
The couple talk more about their failed engagement and do more apologizing to each other. They become all chummy and as Elliot walks away, he brings up the failed engagement again which is getting on my nerves. This better turn into a horror movie quickly with Elliot being the first victim.
After seeing what the house interior originally looked like in some of Ruby’s old photographs, Anna decides to stage the place in the style of the roaring ’20s and hold a big jazz band party for the open house. Rather than have Ruby use her ghost powers, she enlists Elliot to move some couches. The trio go shopping for antiques to finish staging the house and then to the local fall fair.
While dining at the restaurant where the couple had their first date, Ruby sneaks a letter she wrote detailing Anna’s true feelings into Elliot’s coat pocket. She also uses ghost magic (i.e., speaking directly into their faces) to convince them to dance. They almost kiss, but Elliot gets spooked by love and pulls away.
The next day, Elliot tells her that he read her secret letter. He’s happy but needs some time to think about whether or not he wants to get together again. He’s been wanting this to happen, so what gives?
Terrence sneaks by the Poltergeist house to drop off a letter announcing that he’ll be hosting an open house on the same day as Anna’s and catches her doing the Charleston by herself. He sends a video of the incident to her to her dad, texting “I’m concerned.” Not sure how he could pick up the audio from outside if she was talking to Ruby. It just looks like she’s having a good time.
It’s the big day of the open house. While with Elliot at some historical preservation hearing, Anna gets a harried call from her father asking her why she’s not there early. All the people she hired for the party are going nuts since no one is there to coordinate. Anna does an Irish goodbye on Elliot and rushes to the house.
When she arrives, VERY ALIVE FATHERTM? tells his daughter that he’s taken care of everything…by canceling the open house. He states that he’s going to give Terrence the job, hops into his Beamer, and leaves.
Anna apologizes to Elliot for leaving early. They get into an argument about how cagey she’s been and, unfortunately, she can’t tell him that she’s been party planning with a ghost. Elliot takes this as Anna being indecisive again and storms away in a huff, telling her that she’s just a big quitter.
Anna yells at Ruby for convincing her to throw a party. Ruby runs upstairs to cry about her ghost life and loss of Charlie. Anna feels bad and looks for Ruby, but since she can’t find her, starts looking through the ghost’s private letters.
Dad calls to tell her that he’s found her a new house to hawk and that Terrence has already sold Luigi’s Mansion to a shell company who plans to tear it down. It’s only been approximately four hours since the botched open house, but we’ve got about 10 minutes of runtime left, so tick tock. A sad Anna leaves, still unable to see Ruby.
The next day, the tremendously terrible new real estate agent interrupts the sale by declaring that she’s filed for the house to be designated as a historical site. With this pending registration, no work can be done on it thereby sabotaging the deal. Dad and daughter argue outside about the mess Anna calls her life. But it doesn’t really matter because they make up very quickly.
Ruby eerily opens the door to Elliot into the house where she ghost-talks to him. Not able to actually speak to him, she smashes a vase to get his attention. This causes him to spot a photo of Charlie in the hallway. Anna walks in and prepare your rolling eyeballs because Elliot reveals that Charlie is his bachelor great-uncle. Ruby is thrilled that Charlie didn’t ever find another woman to love.
They hug and Ruby departs with some kind words to go spiritually hook up with Charlie.
Elliot (who can now see ghosts briefly) and Anna wave goodbye to the ghosts. Anna tells him that she loves him and wants a second chance. Elliot, still stunned by the concept of an afterlife, says yeah and they kiss. FIN
REVIEW
The movie had a ghost and a woman who looks like she’s going crazy from real estate which is a pretty big positive. The honking negative is Elliot. To be fair, Anna’s dad was awfully overbearing which was also sucky. But let’s not let Elliot off the hook with his many passive aggressive comments. Anna deserved better and I don’t say that often about Hallmark Heroines.
Of all the characters, Ruby had the most interesting life, so it was disappointing that she had to play second fiddle to a boring woman. She did a bunch of cool things in just 25 years! I would’ve liked to have learned more about her or been treated to some flashbacks with a bad casting job of Hemingway. But, no, we just get a half-assed Charlie storyline. It’s a classic tale of lost love, but I couldn’t root for them seeing as only three minutes of the film was spent showing us that they liked each other. And 75% of that was Ruby breaking up with him. Ah well, I guess I’ll just have to wait for the next ghost-based Hallmark movie.
Rating: 2.5 passive aggressive comments out of 5
STRAY THOUGHTS
- Am I to believe that this mansion has only 3 beds and 2 baths? That is terrible floor plan for such a large space.
- I sort of get where Terrence is coming from. The boss’s daughter gets a big listing right after getting her real estate accreditation. I’d be a little pissed about it, too.
- The writers prepped by watching a bunch of 1920s cartoons because Ruby talks like Betty Boop.
- Anna accepts the ghost explanation very quickly.
- The movie has a little scene showing that Anna can’t wink and does nothing with this.
- How does Elliot not hear Anna having a whole ass conversation with herself in the next room?
- Anna drives a cool antique car that they never address. I feel as though something about it got cut out in the editing room.
- Ruby’s self portrait transforms into this and then winks which is the creepiest part of the film.
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