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Keywords
Holiday Mismatch, meddling moms, Christmas movie, character dynamics, family relationships, Hallmark, romantic comedy, plot overview, character development, festive themes
Summary
In this conversation, Nick and Leslie review the Hallmark movie 'Holiday Mismatch,' discussing its themes of meddling mothers, character dynamics, and the romantic plot between the children. They explore the comedic elements, the character development of the leads, and the overall execution of the film, providing ratings and final thoughts on its merits as a holiday movie.
Nick And Leslie (00:01.004)
Nick and Leslie, Nick and Leslie, I'm gonna have a drink. What a delight of a song again. I'm here all day, folks. If you need a jingle, hit me up. All right. Holiday mismatch is this Sunday, November. Thank you. I forgot what day we saw this. Sunday. Basically, Mother knows best. Really? I wrote down meddling mom.
I mean, just because Mother knows best is not what is right and is true. I was just saying the theme. yes. Anyway, on that note, hit that trailer.
Alright, so what do you think of meddling moms? mean, holiday mismatch. I feel like it's not as big of a hit as they thought it would be, but it was cute. I wonder how much money they had to throw at our two main actresses. yes, I unfortunately cannot.
say their names out loud. But one is named Barbara and the other one is Kath. But for the listeners who didn't notice it from the trailer or maybe you didn't watch it, you probably recognize the voices, but it's the two aunts from Sabrina the Teenage Witch, the TV series with Melissa Joan Hart. Yes. Is that late 90s or early 1000s? 1000s, I want to say.
Nick And Leslie (01:43.926)
So yeah, it's I guess them returning to the straight man wacky woman characters that they played for Evers. So it's Broderick. man wacky woman? Well, you know, comedy duo is always like the straight guy and the wacky guy. I don't know what they call it, but they're ladies, so never mind. So was starring Beth Broderick and
feel like I kind of remember the other one's name, but she's not showing up on IMDB. This is so strange. I'm not sure how many holiday mismatches there are. Well, just look up Sabrina the Teenage Witch. I will. Caroline Ray all the way in box. Caroline Ray. Yeah. Caroline Ray and Beth Broderick return to their comedy duo. Yes. So Barbara is a retired accountant and it is Christmas season and she is...
needing the urge to have a project. And then the other character, Kath, is on the city council for the Christmas festivities throughout the town. And so they collide whenever Barbara is in any volunteer job. goes this, she's recommended to be part of the city commissioners for the Christmas festivities. So they meet each other, Barb and Kath. Kath is
this really whimsical character when Barb is quite a Barbara, she makes that known it's Barbara, not Barb, is very strict into the book. so basically, Kath keeps all of her receipts for bookkeeping in a shoe box when Barbara does everything on spreadsheets. And so Barbara is helping out with finances of the committee. And of course, they are butting heads and they are not enjoying each other.
But in their personal lives, they both just happen to be on an app, a dating app for both of their children. One has a son, one has a daughter, and trying to get them hooked up for cuffing season basically. Yeah. And both of their children are too busy to do any of this on their own, which is why they're not on a dating app. Yes. The parents are like, or the mothers are like, we know best. So we're going to pretend to be you. We're going to catfish people.
Nick And Leslie (04:10.094)
and set you up some dates. And so it hasn't been going well, but the kids are set up on a blind date. Happens to be one, the daughter of Barbara, I'm sorry, the son of Barbara and then the daughter of Kath and the children meet, but no one knows anything that they already know each other basically or their parents or mothers do. But they both decide, hey, we're really tired of our parents or our moms specifically.
wanting to put us together with someone during the holiday season. We just want to focus on our small businesses that they both have to and just get through the holiday season. So they agree to again have a fake dating time during this. so, and of course they tell their mothers like, they met someone. They're like, we want to meet them immediately. Immediately. Yeah. Yeah. So it's like they have one date where the two of them decide, let's just pretend we're dating to get our parents off our back, get our moms off our backs.
And their second date is meeting the mom. Yes. That's wild. It was wild. And then so just throughout the time, the parents, the moms are figuring out now, I'm just, I forgot something. What? that's right. So what they're planning is for the Christmas council is the Christmas market.
and a Brook Lane Nutcracker Christmas ball. yeah. So again, I'm not sure what these cities are doing right to where they are just specifically only doing Christmas. So sorry for every other religion and just people in general. We can't enjoy the wintertime, but, know, I Hallmark. I want Hallmark to do like an atheist Christmas movie. Yeah, you know, let's get down to the roots of what Christmas is about.
Everything that it represents. Was the first meeting of the parents, was it at a, at a general Christmas, the general Christmas festival or another Christmas market or a fair? So I remember it was meeting Caroline Ray, a calf. It was the first time someone met someone. So that's whenever they all ran into each other and saw,
Nick And Leslie (06:36.94)
That's you and you. and then the, the, the moms. So I believe there's that some type of a Christmas festival. don't think it was the one they were playing. that's right. Yeah. It was a night scene. It was, it was that same date. That's when the parents realized, ew, my son is dating your daughter or, my daughter's dating your son. Or I it was their Christmas festival that was going on for a few weeks or whatever. Cause all this started on December 1st. Yes. Yes. And, so now the two moms are like,
we don't want our kids to be together. should fake or we should have them break up. So then they start planning these outings and other events for them date, for their dates to go on and try and ruin the relationship. And it's actually cute when they go on these dates and they have a great time. They learn about each other and they grow fond of one another. again, so the mother is that they are fake dating.
Yeah, so the first one of these dates that they're trying to ruin, Kath, and again, the moms keep inviting themselves on these dates too. So Kath says like, hey, we got to go pick up a tree. Let's invite, we didn't even say the kid's name, it's Lauren and Shane. Lauren and Shane, yeah. Let's invite Shane to help us pick out a tree. Lauren is an architect and has her own firm in a beautiful building. She looks like she's maybe 17 years old.
Basically, but gorgeous building. You go girl. You go. Yes, and it's like a female firm. And Shane owns a Brook Lane Theater. An improv theater. An improv theater. Yeah, and he owns the building. Yes. And he's thinking about selling it because he hates doing payroll. Yes, and doesn't want to keep up the building. Yeah, which is it's not like, he doesn't have the money to do that. It's, although by the end he does apply for Yeah, he does apply for a grant. But like the whole time.
I mean him and his mom come from money. They have a gorgeous house. But it's just weird that he's like really his, his character development is like, know what? am going to follow through rather than like I've solved a problem. The problem is just that he's lazy. Right. Great catch. I And I get it. Like his mom offers to do the payroll because she is a retired accountant. I'd be like, fine. Yeah. Please take it. So I can go try and repair this question.
Nick And Leslie (09:03.874)
How hard is payroll for an improv theater? The hardest part of payroll is people filling out their time sheets when they miss punches. It is like pulling teeth to get signed papers. I imagine in the improv theater you don't punch in, you get paid for performance. Right, can't be that hard. And I'm sure it's just based on how many seats are filled and you get 3%. I have no idea. That's a number I'm just pulling out.
Yeah. It just felt like part of that plot was done via Mad Libs. Right. And then also in our Hallmark universe, our HU, we know that theaters have no staff. They have a director and assistant director. Everyone else is volunteers. So payroll is what? Yeah. Good point. Exactly. You know, I'm just saying.
But it's once again, we are in a situation where the man is emotional, cannot be practical and the woman is practical to a fault and he has to show her that it's important to stop and smell the cookies. is under pressure from a client and she wants to meet the deadline of architectural plans to submit to like the city for approval on this building, but wants to do it for January 1st before the codes change. She is being efficient. Yes.
Yeah, and yet this one over here won. And so her business partner, so unhelpful. yeah. And she, I guess, guess her emotional thing is like the business partner is like, hey, they came back. They want to move the cafe from outside to inside. She's like, this is going to take me forever to redesign. She's like, do you want me to push back on them? No, I'll do it. And so that happens two or three times where they keep trying to change things and she doesn't ask them to push back.
until finally at the end she does have a presentation with the client. She's like, hey, we can make these changes for you, but it is not going to be done in time for the new codes to change. We'll have to probably revisit other things. And then they had the nice swell of music of her finally standing up to herself. And I'm like, this is weird. How does she own a business? Well, know, again, you know, there's times, you know, we've done plenty of things where like, we knew that we were right and we're like, but we want to make this customer happy. So we just.
Nick And Leslie (11:27.916)
Let it happen. I mean, So it's just like, I don't know how architects get paid, but I don't think it's by the hour. If it was, yeah, do all the changes they want. Okay. Well, the times that we have interacted with, if it's like architects or it's up to a certain time, they will redraft things. Then yeah, it's hourly. So anyway, okay. So a tree shopping. So, Cath is like, that's a good tree.
Shane wrap it up. He's like you don't think it's too big. They have not spoken to a single person that works at this Christmas He just grabs some twine and starts wrapping up this tree. They're stealing trees! And he can't lift it. It's too heavy. And then she's like you need a man who's a bit more woodsy and better with stuff and he's like I'm right here. And the entire time he goes I don't know how to do this. I've never had, which is understandable if you've never. We have a balsam hill at home.
is what he's basically saying. exactly. We have a balsam hill. Yeah. And then Lauren just, she thinks it's adorable. They're working together, having a wonderful time. And Kath is like, she's supposed to be disappointed that he's not handy. You literally acted like her. I know. That's like how she was acting. That's what I doing. Yeah. know you did a good job. tantrum. And so they had a cute time despite her throwing temper tantrums in the back. Then when they do bring the house inside, he tries to trim it up.
When they bring the tree inside. Sorry, they bring the tree inside the house, a rat comes out of it. And he was actually adorable being afraid of the rat. He jumps on the couch and he's like, and then, then Cath is like, get it, get it out of the house. Shane, you can do it. And it was a cute rat. It was a white one. Yeah. It was a fat one. And then for the second date, Barbara decides to invite Lauren secretly to Shane's play.
which is an improv retelling of the Christmas Carol. It's always a Christmas Carol because it's public domain. Carol because it's public domain. And so she thought that would throw him off his game or something, but she had a wonderful time. Yeah. She participated and they had a romantic time together on stage while everyone got to watch. Yeah, it was adorable. I don't know why Barbara thought that would have been bad. Well, some people don't want... I'm sure we know people that...
Nick And Leslie (13:51.084)
would not stand in front of a theater. Do think it's because Barbara is secretly embarrassed by what her son does and he thought that Lauren would also be embarrassed? I mean, I see what you're saying, but at the same time, I'm not going to improv. So even if it is with a carrier pigeon and I can't remember what the other thing was, but anyway. I love the scene of the two talking to Santa is filler. that's right. So.
Barbara and Kath, as part of one of the events they're putting on for this Christmas season, whatever, one of the other people on the board with the planning committee has to pretend to be Santa so kids can lie out. And he is having an existential crisis. He's locked in the locker room or whatever. He locked himself in the break room. And he's like, what if they ask for something I can't give them? And they're like,
They make a whole heartwarming scene, but it played no bearing on the plot of the movie. It was real. I think it was just so that they can fill time. It filled time as well as they needed a stunt double for this scene. OK. Kath tried to climb on top of Barbara to go through the window that is it's like the vent window above a door.
Those always exist in movies. I've never seen one Well, in old buildings. you haven't? No. Not even in Florida? I don't think so. Okay. Okay. I'll show you some historical architecture out there. hazard. It's not, it's- It makes the fire move from one to another. That's- no. I know, I understand your thought on that part. Yes. If they're open, but they're supposed to open and close and they're to move air around like prior to air conditioning. Okay. Anyway, so instead-
Kath gets on the ground, Barbara gets on top of her and yeets herself through said vent window. And you just see her pop up, like, look at me. I like to imagine that Hallmark has two stunt people on retainer, one male, one female. And they are required to get them in a few shots or use them in a few hours.
Nick And Leslie (16:11.222)
Was it Operation Nutcracker? No, it wasn't Operation Nutcracker. It was the Christmas charade where they had the stunt people jumping off the roof. my gosh. Going down the rope. Yes, that's right. Some of them then had to quickly put on a white wig and pop over to the scene so she could climb through this vent over a door. Mm-hmm. That's fun. It was. was. What's funny too is I bet they don't even have two copies of that.
costume that the character was wearing. they probably had to change and then switch it back to the other character so that she can, other actors, so she could put the clothes back on. Do you have any type of pink capri that you can wear? No you don't? Okay, you guys gotta switch. Put a belt on. Yeah, so I wrote down, upper class problems, which is Shane thinking about selling the building he bought because he hates doing payroll. Upper.
class problem. Also, he only had 20 seats in there. If you added more seats, you probably could make more money. 20. And there was a bar. So in a bar in the back. Did you notice this too? Every time it would cut to like the outside, it has this beautiful sign that says like Brooklyn and theater or whatever. Brooklyn. Brooklyn theater. And it's like one door in a long brick strip of a building. So there's like multiple businesses all attached to this one building. And he owns that.
I mean, maybe it's like a condo and he owns that one slice, but I don't think that's how that works. He co-op in a building. I don't know. But it just seems like he owns the whole building with multiple tenants. anyways. Well, if you are interested in owning a building and having multiple tenants for an investment, hit me up at Tampa Bay Homes for Sale dot real estate, Leslie Haas with Realty One Word Sunshine. Smooth.
Selling the building. So, how did he buy the building? Mom and dad's money? And he too is a baby.
Nick And Leslie (18:19.278)
chemistry-o-meter. a good SBA loan he got. So for the chemistry-o-meter, I'm giving Lauren and Shane a 7 out of 10. Their dates that kept going well were very believable. Agreed. was very cute. Although Lauren does look like she's about 10 years younger than Shane. Yeah. was weird. She has pretty hair. She must have had extensions. worst gay brother.
my gosh, I forgot about him. Shane tells his brother, look, Lauren and I are just pretending to date, but I am actually falling for her. The immediate next scene, the brother's like, Mom, I got a secret. Is not yours to give. They really should have like separated those out by a couple scenes. So it doesn't seem like he's immediately giving it was taken.
But that's siblings!
That's siblings. I wrote, too much plot, paid job question mark. I don't know which job I was. it was Kath's. yeah. That's why I was wondering like if Kath is on this committee organizing Christmas stuff and she's talking about how like, she says to this, this woman that she, is very rude to her, her old boss still in city city council. She must be the comptroller. Maybe. Yeah. I do wish it was like,
I he was all connected. I wish it was the Comptroller from the last movie. Like I said, they do. It's all in the Chestnut Arena in the hot cocoa vendors. The street vendors. The popcorn ones, yeah. And so I'm just wondering if this is a paid job or volunteer job. Because I don't know how Kath can afford to live. And she's also doing this full-time also, they volunteered to make
Nick And Leslie (20:16.192)
or Thanksgiving sandwiches at the senior home. This was the one time Hallmark actually made something that had weight to it, that made the actors lift up. So shout out to Music Real Props. What a weird presentation. I guess that was when- the daughter. Yeah, the daughter at the architect firm was like, hey, we can make these changes, but whatever. And then of course, because only one of them-
Only one of the people in that meeting is a speaking role. He just looks at the rest of his company, nods, and then says, yeah, we'll go with what you say. Gotta love background actors We love a good budget, yeah. I also wondered, permitted work. So he decides to fix that up. Yeah. I was like, wow, is this permitted work that he is doing?
What was he, changing pipes or something? I don't know, he was like, said, take a look on the floor, there's a couple cracks I need you to fill in with black paint. I think he said. I don't remember.
Nick And Leslie (21:25.762)
But he's like, yeah, we're going to apply for a grant. And I found a few people who will help me with some of the renovations. And we're just wondering if he's getting permits on this stuff. I also wrote down that his head is too big for his face. So either his face is small and his head is big, or his head is big and his face is normal. don't know. All right.
And then my last note is navigating the unknowns of retirement, which is something that we will never know. Yeah. Barbara said, I guess I'll need help navigating the unknowns of retirement. That's, that's an issue that comes in a society where people only value themselves based on what they do and what they produce. Yeah. And what they want to leave a legacy.
Any final thoughts for holiday mismatch? Meddling mothers that need a project. Mary meddling mothers? Yes. A 6 out of 10. It's on the C at scale. Okay. Where do you put Lauren and Shane for the... I agreed on it with you on that. ...chemistry-o-meter. A 7 out of 10. For writing, I'm giving it a 5.
I really loved the scenes where the moms were trying to sabotage it and it just kept bringing the couple closer. Acting, I gave it a three because I feel like the two leads, Barbara and Kath, their shtick worked in Sabrina, the Teenage Witch. It did not work for me here. There was some lack of expression as well.
And directing, I think it was like Botox-based, I was trying not to say that. Well, you didn't say it, did. So directing, I'm giving that a three, because there were some very awkward transitions and just weird cuts. And then again, like the brother totally giving up the secret in the immediate next scene rather than like doling that out for a bit longer. Just seemed some really weird decisions in that. So...
Nick And Leslie (23:47.658)
I think you can miss this one. It's got some cute moments, but it's not worth two hours. we never brought up where was the dad. the dad's a realtor, right? No, that's the stepfather for Barbara. That's the husband. But I'm referring to Kath. yeah. He left when they were kids.
Wait, that's right. Yeah. Okay. I'm so sorry. Well, he left when he went to the drugs to the drug store to get a thing of milk and never came back. Like, I want to know what happened. All she said was that dad left. Yeah. Dad left. I'm just saying I want to know the abandonment story. Yeah. I feel like if you're going to have an abandonment, an abandoned parent in a child in a, not a Marvel movie, what are we talking? Hallmark movie. They can't really dwell on that.
because you can't have anything sad for longer than 20 seconds. It's with Until the musical flourish ends. Anyway, Bill's character. I want to hear a little backstory. Well, you're not going to hear from us for a couple days because the new premieres are going to wait until Friday. Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and I think Thursday might have another mystery one if Leslie's able to catch it. She'll give me the rundown. And will it actually be a mystery this time? Is it five golden rings, I think, this time?
Potentially. Now I want to ask something of you the listeners. The listeners. I see the numbers. I know people are listening. And it seems weird that I know nothing about the people listening. Can you just say hi? Give us a five star? Where are you watching us from? Or listening. Or listening. And I don't mean the bathroom. I'm referring to maybe what city? Yeah. And let us know what you think of some of these movies. Yes.
What's your chemistrometer? If you're on Spotify, you can comment on this. If you're on YouTube, comment on YouTube. It'd be nice to know that we are not just talking to ourselves. Yeah. I mean, I enjoy talking to her too. mean, we do. We do. We married each other. But like, it feels like sometimes we're the only people who watch these garbage movies. Yeah, but we love these. Yeah. And I want to know other people who are enjoying our commentary. Tell us. And then if you have like a
Nick And Leslie (26:03.822)
was going to say a must-see Hallmark one that is like your top tier. What is your haul out the Holly? What is your haul out the Holly? What is your My Norwegian Christmas? Yes! Let's hear it. Type it in those comments. Alright. Like and subscribe. Bye! Merry Christmas! Smash that subscribe button. Bye-oh. Bye.
