The title to this film is pretty vague. I almost skipped it because I thought it would be a generic Hallmark movie where a Hallmark Heroine falls in love with the man who plays the lead in a small town performance of The Nutcracker. But nope. Hallmark has made enough of its Christmas films that it went out and made one about its films. It’s a meta movie.

Emily (Lawson) has always dreamed of creating the perfect Christmas, meticulously planning every detail year after year, only to feel like she’s falling short. Hoping to bring her family closer together, she makes a wish for a holiday as picture-perfect as the ones she sees in a made-for-TV holiday movie. To her shock, Sugarplum (Parrish), the film’s relentlessly optimistic main character, magically steps off the screen to make Emily’s wish come true — whether she’s ready for it or not. As Sugarplum applies her movie-world rules to real life, Emily gets caught up in the possibility of finally achieving the flawless family Christmas. But when Sugarplum’s magical fixes start to backfire one by one, Emily begins to question what an ideal holiday really is. With time running out, Emily and Sugarplum find themselves on a heartwarming adventure – one that might just amount to an entirely different kind of Christmastime perfection. Starring Maggie Lawson and Janel Parrish.

That’s some really long text from the About page for this film. I might as well not write up anything. But I long to suffer…

RECAP

The film kicks off with the Hallmark voice over guy (like the actual guy) telling us that we’re watching the Harmony Home network, home of the Sugarplum movie series.

We get a glimpse of Harmony Home’s popular Sugarplum film series. Sugarplum is every Hallmark Heroine rolled into one. She has saved a Christmas tree farm, dated a secret holiday prince, and received a magical snow globe directly from Santa. It’s cool that Hallmark is aware that its films are wholly unoriginal. The voiceover guy also informs us that viewers should enter the Sugarplum house contest.

The movie begins for real. We meet our actual Hallmark Heroine Emily who is…a lawyer [insert DJ airhorn sound]! She’s trying to bake and boss her daughter around.

Her husband who is…an architect! is busy making small houses. He complains to his wife that his newly divorced boss is a pain in the ass. Emily tells him that maybe he should stop being a wiener and stand up for himself. Husband says no.

We cut to the son who is busy doing a TikTok dance. Or whatever Hallmark thinks people do on TikTok. Both kids are artsy but with varying levels of success. The son is a bit of a lame-o with no friends. The movie really wants us to know this.

Emily holds a family meeting to force her family to take part in her annual holiday checklist that she can never accomplish. No one is buying what she’s selling. Emily burns her baked goods.

At work, Emily catches her PA watching a Sugarplum movie. Emily orders her to stop, but the PA is so mind bogglingly dense, she tells her boss that she just wants to know if Sugarplum will marry the holiday prince. This sets the lawyer off. Emily spends the rest of her workday talking about holiday movies.

Emily heads home but finds out that her PA ordered something to the office rather than her house. That woman is screaming to get fired. Emily goes back to work and finds a magic ornament. She makes a wish on it.

The office appliances go berserk, and Sugarplum materializes into our reality. Emily freaks the fuck out and runs away. Unfortunately, she’s stuck with the magical Hallmark lady. Sugarplum tells Emily that there are rules to ensure a perfect Christmas.

Emily takes Sugarplum home.

The next day, Sugarplum hires decorators to make the house look suitable for Christmas. Unfortunately for Emily, she is billed for the woman’s mistake.

The problem is easily wrapped up because Sugarplum just pawns the jewelry that she has received from the multiple princes she has dated.

Sugarplum goes to Emily’s job and discovers that her new friend represents a small business that is being threatened by a big developer. The magical lady sticks her nose into the dispute and convinces the small businesswoman and the big businessman to hook up, thereby closing the case.

Emily is starting to come around to Sugarplum and takes her shopping. She is unable to buy sold out headphones for her daughter, so Sugarplum conveniently wins a Christmas competition and obtains them.

Now that Sugarplum is totally paying off, Emily opens up and tells her about the holiday checklist. Emily’s mom created it after they had a disastrous Christmas where the house almost burned down. Now she wants to keep up the tradition which means pressuring her family to be perfect for Christmas. This desire is further fueled by the news that Harmony Home has specifically asked Emily to enter the Sugarplum competition.

The next day, Emily is called into work but is reminded that she is supposed to go to her dork son’s class for Career Day.

Sugarplum, the unemployed figment of Harmony Home’s imagination, goes instead. It starts off terribly because Sugarplum is a maniac, but she conjures up snow in the hallway to make it all better. Everyone thinks the son planned this and now he is cool.

Emily finds out they are finalists for the Sugarplum contest. Things are going great until they aren’t. Sugarplum blows out the electricity which indicates that the magical rules aren’t foolproof.

The lawyer and Sugarplum head to work to pick up an ornament and run into the client from earlier. Apparently, the business dude pretended to like her to trick her into signing away her business rights. This is genuinely very funny. Emily rushes into her office with her client to fix the mess.

After getting served, Sugarplum is thrown in jail for vandalizing the school with snow. Emily races to the jailhouse to save the stupid magic lady. The cops are annoyed because she won’t stop singing the 12 Days of Christmas and Sugarplum’s fingerprints are snowflakes. Ultimately, Sugarplum is released because the cop doesn’t want to work over Christmas.

At home, Emily learns that her son is even cooler now because he has been suspended for the snow “prank.” On top of that, the husband took Emily’s gin cookies to his office and the evil boss got so mad that he moved the architecture deadline to Christmas Eve. She has a fight with her daughter over BerkLEE. Sugarplum has a mental breakdown.

Emily declares that winning the Sugarplum competition will solve everything. 

Husband tries to meet an unreasonable deadline, the daughter whines about BerkLEE, and the son mistakenly uploaded a terrible dance video which is now being shared by his classmates. The family gets pissed off with Emily’s desire to put the competition ahead of their needs. Everyone leaves to go to the daughter’s pageant without Emily. This blow up all happens in front of Sugarplum who appears to be scarred for life.

Emily comes to her senses and goes to the pageant. She witnesses her husband stand up to his boss with the fake English accent.

The family watches the daughter sing a generic Christmas song. She gets a very long standing ovation presumably because the audience is relieved that the pageant is finally over.

At home, the evil boss stops by to say sorry for being an ass; it was the divorce’s fault. As he leaves, he bumps into the annoying next door neighbor who is a widow. They leave together to go hook up.

The family gathers to watch the Sugarplum movie marathon together. The moral of the story? Watching Hallmark movies is the true meaning of Christmas. FIN.

REVIEW

Overall, this wasn’t absolutely awful and, with a few tweaks, could fit outside of Hallmark. It could’ve been better with more bonkers stuff happening. A magic Santa would have been a welcome addition, but they kept the antics pretty toned down. Sugarplum didn’t really read as a Hallmark Heroine but more as a mad Christmas woman. I don’t think Hallmark has any recurring magical characters, so I think they should make an actual Sugarplum series. I could see it doing pretty well.

Rating: 2.5 out of 5 dork sons

STRAY THOUGHTS

• Husband says this about his boss: “It’s like I’m working for Scrooge only instead of three fun ghosts, he’s haunted by regret.” Not a terrible line, but I wouldn’t call the ghosts in A Christmas Carol “fun.”
• The lady playing Sugarplum is having a great time.
• I’m sort of glad they made fun of the fact that in Hallmark world everything is free. Tradespeople need to get paid for their services in the real world!
• Sugarplum has a Mary Poppins bag.
• The next door neighbor’s story is sad as hell. Her husband is dead and her kids don’t visit her, so she’s just alone all the time.
• The developer and small businesswoman get engaged off screen. I guess he wasn’t playing her. Boooooo!
• I’m not watching this again, so I don’t know if Emily won the Sugarplum competition. We broadly assume that the neighbor dropped the lawsuit against Sugarplum. Also, I don’t know what happened to the kid’s suspension.