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Keywords
Hallmark movies, Christmas, My Sweet Austrian Holiday, movie review, plot analysis, character development, corporate takeover, chocolate contest, romantic comedy, holiday themes
Summary
In this episode, Nick and Leslie dive into the Hallmark movie 'My Sweet Austrian Holiday,' discussing its plot, characters, and themes. They analyze the romantic elements, the corporate takeover storyline, and the culinary aspects of the film, particularly focusing on the chocolate contest. The conversation also touches on the implications of the characters' choices and the overall execution of the movie, leading to a final rating and reflections on Hallmark's holiday offerings.
Nick And Leslie (00:01.294)
Welcome back everyone. Hello, hello. Hope everyone had a wonderful, happy Halloween. Now on to the next holidays. So 31 Hallmark movies is not enough for Leslie. Not enough. So if you haven't heard, the Hallmark Mystery Channel has also had a few new Christmas movies coming out. And one of them that came out on October 31st, Thursday,
was my sweet Austrian holiday. So I had to watch it. So I did stream it though on Friday. So I watched it, Nick has it, and we're gonna see, let him watch the trailer. I'm gonna walk him through this movie, but also see if he can guess some of the plot twists and plot. All right, but first we're show him the trailer. Let's roll that beautiful Christmas footage.
Nick And Leslie (01:11.086)
Mm-hmm.
Nick And Leslie (01:41.336)
Okay.
So, that was my sweet Austrian holiday.
Okay, so based on what I saw, my prediction... Okay, well first off, from that trailer, only one person had an Austrian accent. Or a non-American accent, so that is gonna be the dude. So I can't really discern if they're in Austria, because the main character didn't have an accent. There's chocolate involved, so I'm like, Austrian chocolate. But like, Germans do chocolate, and Austria's close by, it's Austria...
for chocolate? Am I pissing off Austrians by asking this question out loud? So my thought is, she's an American baker who went to Austria because she fell in love with Austrian chocolate when she was a child. She's opened up this shop and now that place is being destroyed by a company called Something Development Group, which is an English name for what is probably an Austrian company. Then it turns out this guy owns it.
So this is kind of the same premise as that candle story from that other movie a few movies back, but it's from her perspective. So she is gonna spend some time with this guy and he's like, I'll give it a few days to learn more about this woman, see if we can find a solution. She has a friend who's urging her to spend more time with this guy. She does. They fall in love and he has some type of solution that probably involves, you know what? We can keep your shop on the bottom level and build apartments on the top.
That's my thoughts. And so that concludes the My Sweet Austrian Holiday. Can I guess some character names? Yeah. Okay. I mean, I didn't watch the trailer, so I don't know if it says any of the names. If it did, I didn't notice. But I'm going to guess the guy's named Hans.
The girl is named... They've been giving them weird names, but sometimes they're just basic. Let's say her name is Noelle. I wish. And then her friend's name is... Sylvia. What about his friend's name? if he has a friend, his friend's name is Franz? Franz? Alright, we're very close. okay. Alright, so what's the premise? His name is Henry. Her name is Charlotte.
right hand woman is Maya, his right hand man is, is it Wilfred? Yes, Wilfred. Was I right about the ethnicities of people? So it is interesting. It took me a bit to realize I'm like, is someone Austrian and they're meeting an Austrian or are they in Austria? Because everyone had American accents except two people. But the first one is later as first,
And you're just like, it's one person. then much later on, like, there's someone that has some accent that I'm like, is this Austrian or are we just trying for a Dutch accent of some sort? And then you do have the Henry who is British. So he was British. So it took a minute to be like, are we? But I'm like, okay, we are in Austria. I'm like, okay. Yeah. So we are in Austria.
Nick And Leslie (05:29.162)
Alright, interesting. Yeah, so you definitely have hit the ornament on the candy cane. don't know. Yes, we have somewhat a developer taking over a land. So I don't know who got hurt in Hallmark this year. I like Hallmark is the developer. I don't know. Maybe not. Right? Probably Mom and Pop. Greeting card shop.
It's exactly what you were having. There is a theme change, I feel like, in Hallmark this year from bigs going up to from like your big city person going back home to their small town holiday. It's corporate takeover. Someone got hurt in Hallmark by a corporate takeover with eminent domain or something. But I do question the legality in all this because you have Charlotte who inherited her grandmother's
chocolate shop, so they're chocolatiers. Okay, so the grandmother's Austrian. the grandmother's Austrian, so is the mother. okay. But the mom moved to the States and is an attorney. The trailer said, don't want to move back to Cincinnati. Right, yes, so like Cincinnati, where the mom decided to become an attorney, leave Austria, but the grandmother was still a chocolatier in Austria. So Charlotte is an attorney.
who when she inherited the grandmother's chocolatier shop, Dobler Chocolate in Austria, who was apparently this well-known Austrian chocolatier. And so she inherited the shop, so she left being an attorney and is a chocolatier over in Austria. Is that an anti-feminist commentary that women will feel more fulfilled if they're baking versus...
practicing law. So that was something I was thinking of in regards to what generation wrote this. So I do put this above watching a Carol for two, I am concerned about the, you know, a woman having to, you know, fulfill a man's, voids of emptiness and missing certain things. And that sounded interesting the way I said that, but anyway, but you know, a woman having to take over, then yeah, a woman.
Nick And Leslie (07:48.556)
Let me leave this, what I work so hard for to go be in the kitchen basically and have this, you know, crafty hobby. mean, it's more than a hobby, believe me, especially if you're in and she's, she put, she put herself to be, my God, she entered into the Vienna chocolate contest. there's a contest. Yes. I love movies that have a contest. But that's annoying. They barely bring it up.
Exactly, they make it all about Henry. They probably realize that we can't afford as many actors as we need to have an actual competition. Or sets in this case as well. it was again a very... Strolls are free. Strolls are free. We're going to put up curtains to make it look like it's a new scene. Yeah, or a new set. yeah, corporate takeover in this. So we start off first at a fundraiser event for a children's hospital.
So like the fourth children's hospital where Charlotte with a dobler chocolates is the the chocolatier and she's come up with some fun treats and she tries this salt and chocolate, some type of a snack and people just love it. And Henry's at this event who is a rich person that owns a company called Euro Star, who just acquired
Danube Development, who Danube Development is in the process of purchasing all these businesses in this area, including Dobler Chocolates, who Dobler Chocolates is saying, no, I'm not selling out to you, even though they've been giving a big number. So hang on, I got to wind this back. If you were in this position, you spent six to eight years studying law, becoming a lawyer.
Probably more than that. Was she successful as a lawyer? I believe she was an attorney. Like she made it all the way up. Okay, so six to eight years studying, you become an There's people in Cincinnati saying, come back and we're going to give you a job at this prestigious firm. And then you find, you inherit a chocolatier. You're like, geez, this is a lot of responsibility. Wait a minute, someone's offering me a ton of money for this? By the way, it's not just a chocolatier shop. It's an entire building she owns that has a
Nick And Leslie (10:13.036)
very lovely two-story apartment on top of it that she lives at. So it is a three-story building. It is a nice building. Yes, that she inherited. That's the problem I would love to have. my goodness, right? So I don't know what the inheritance tax is in Austria, but sell it. Yeah, I'm so happy for you that you held out and that DMU Development, which is a private company, not a government entity coming in. I don't know what Austrian eminent domain is, but they bring in
an eminent domain for a private to private takeover of like ownership. That's part of the plot. exactly. And I'm like, that's not how eminent domain works. so quickly. I remember this being a political issue a decade back because the government was like, well, we'll make more taxes if this property is owned by Walmart or whatever. Right. But it takes more than that amount of time for it to happen. And then also
The actual, like, your sir, it's a whole thing. It is not what happens. I might also be showing my dumbness here, but Danube, that's not in Austria. Isn't that in Hungary? We have the Danube River. River. Yeah. And the song Blue Danube, but I think that's Hungary. I don't know where all the Blue Danube runs. whispering it because that's my level of confidence. So we didn't need to bring that up. Either way, it's... Pretty sure it's not Austria.
There's a pup that is underneath my feet. Better playing with your feet than with that noisy ball. Anyway, so we meet Charlotte who is the workaholic, you know, again that owns Dobler and her right-hand woman, which is Maya. So Maya, sorry, Charlotte brought Maya from Cincinnati or Maya already worked there? That's a great question. It sounds like Maya's already worked there with her grandmother, with Charlotte's grandmother. And Maya's also American? Apparently.
Okay. So I apparently missed her backstory or something, but I am not sure where Maya came from, but she loves everything chocolate that she puts in her mouth. That's okay. Everything chocolate. So everything is just the best goddamn thing that she has had from Charlotte. So Charlotte is creating these, tasty treats of, you know, savory chocolates. And so at the fundraiser, Henry has one, but
Nick And Leslie (12:29.71)
Henry's right-hand man, Wilfred. Wilfred is like, sir, you need to watch your chocolate intake of your cholesterol. So he's like, I'm watching it. I'm not like my father. And so he eats this delectable thing. He's like, my gosh, this is amazing. Who did this? So I have another question about Charlotte. She also knew how to do chocolate stuff. So she grew up visiting Austria and learning from her grandmother to make chocolate. Okay. Okay. Okay. And just weird that she's inventing new flavors after having been a lawyer for so
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. anyway, so they part and then now we find out that Charlotte is a workaholic and is always up at Foreum creating these contraptions, contraptions, I'm so sorry, these tasteful concoctions of things. So, tell me a flavor, any type of flavor you think would be a great concoction but is interesting for you.
You'd be like, that is different for chocolate. We're not the biggest chocolate lovers. I would say apricot and black pepper. Mm. Okay. I can feel that. It's a good crack. I like that. Yeah. And the pear. yeah. Yeah. I like that little bubbly in there with that crack in the pop. I'm just saying I like it. Okay. Well, she has raspberries tumbled in chocolate with evergreen essence. That's not that exotic. That's not that exotic evergreen essence.
That's what you want in your mouth. Evergreen essence. Is that like a new flavor of herbal essences? And I understand, me, we've had plenty of things that has had rose essence on it and we can taste it. But evergreen, is that what you want? It's like chewing gum. Is it palm olive is what I'm thinking of? olive, yeah.
And I remember as like going camping and in Girl Scouts like cleaning with Palmolive in the bathrooms and like hosing it down. I don't want that in my mouth. I've had that plenty of times in my mouth from cleaning those bathrooms. Yeah. Why you your mouth in the bathroom? No, like I know I'm kidding. When you're spraying that tile bathroom down and it's just water everywhere. not bring your mouth with you. So. Right. Yeah. So.
Nick And Leslie (14:53.326)
Anyway, yep, so I brought two of the one Austrian actor. That's all we had. Okay, we are at this event. have I already lost your interest? It's beautiful sunlight. was thinking how nice our board game box would look, stappled in that way. There are numerous projects that we have going on all the time. Anyway, my gosh, we have so much time.
So yeah, we've. We can spend more time talking about this movie only one of us saw. So this fundraiser, this also made me think of like, who wrote this? Yeah, so I saying we opened up at a fundraiser for the Children's Hospital. That's right. And so anyway, there's these little ballerina dancers and they're trying to get the man to dance with him, Henry. And he's like, no, I'm not going to dance Tchaikovsky this time. Talk about the Nutcracker.
but then they go to the woman and then the woman is forced to dance with these kids. And then, so the man's looking at her in this motherly role, dancing with these girls. And I'm like, who wrote this? And so all these things were adding up. like, this is not a generation that has wrote this because they keep putting her in these motherly feminine roles. you know, I get it. There's a time, there's a season. I don't know. It just, what about him? Yeah. And then he wants to have a holiday break. Cause he's like, Wilfred, I'm not gonna.
worry about this newly, this new company Danube development that we've acquired. I'm not gonna worry about that. I'm just gonna take a holiday break. And then basically Charlotte is thrown upon him by Maya and Wilfred to take him about, show him an Austrian holiday. So now she's forced to stop what she's doing. She's in a chocolate contest for Vienna. She's running a store.
She's also trying to not have an eminent domain lay taken from her by showing that it's a historical building and trying to prove this by showing this man a good holiday season. She needs a break. Let her sit down. we're putting it all in the feed now. Okay. Give it to the man to do anyway. So late, we find out that the CEO of Danube development does not want to tell
Nick And Leslie (17:09.41)
Henry, who is the new owner of DanMu Development, that, we have an old, we have a building, we have an owner that's refusing to sell to move forward in this new housing and storefronts that we want to make, which is already what's there. So, and they don't tell Henry about it. So Henry has no idea what's going on. He just thinks, he asks them, is there anything that we need to work on now? They say, no, there's not. So they lie to him.
And then they, he just goes about having this great holiday time with this woman who's running amok everywhere with a chicken with a head. So she knows he owns the company. No, that's the thing. She does not know. Well, then why does she feel responsible to showing this guy a holiday? Because like Maya is like, you need to have some time and you like him. So it's that female saying you need to spend time with him. And she does like him. Does she plan all of their outings? Basically.
I know. it's like and he does it. And so one of the things is, yeah, let's go skating. And so they go skating. He doesn't even know how to skate. And but what's funny is they barely make one round around this tiny little rink. And there's just two chairs that are empty with a table and someone brings up hot chocolate. That's clearly in the most emptiest of mugs. Here's your hot chocolate. Anyway, so she's.
Asking like you're part of a development company. you help me? So he does try to help her and then that's when it comes he ends up finding out shit, that's my company that's trying to take over her home and buy it and then so he tries to stand up to his dad You know like there has to be another way, but he's still not telling her that it's him and Wilfred's like you need to tell her like you're lying to he's like I will I'll tell her but doesn't yet and then I'm like miss attorney over here. You haven't even googled and
This man that you're supposedly falling in love with. You haven't even Googled his name. You haven't even Googled men's name. Whatever they call it in Austria. Where they call an Austrian. know, Google anyway. I don't want to offend anyone by anything like that. like you know, one of our nine listeners might be off exactly. And then but later on it comes to find out. she goes, my God, I'm so dumb. Why haven't I even Googled him? And then she figures out.
Nick And Leslie (19:25.206)
my gosh, it's him. So then she just like shows up at his firm. Like you lied to me and the Wilfred just stands and turns and walks away and you just see him dart. So I was happy that, you know, they said, my goodness, that, you know, I'm dumb and I didn't explain it. it was funny when they were trying to explain imminent domain, she was trying to explain it like the Grinch taking over Whoville. And it was like,
Okay, anyway, okay, maybe I'm just, everything's different there. And then the Grinch builds affordable housing. Right, affordable, and it wasn't even affordable housing. I'm like, maybe if it was affordable housing, but it was just regular housing with storefronts. Anyway, and so what was the barely, the little bit of part that was talked about, the Vienna chocolate contest was that she submitted a flavor profiles.
and that the store was inspected. But then later on they were supposed to be delivering at the Christmas ball, which anyway, that was weird. They were delivering their leftover, these certain chocolate recipe, I guess their final submission to this ball, which we like don't even get to see like, yeah, she ends up winning, but we don't know anything about like what did she ended up doing?
because she's been at this Christmas market selling stuff also, so another thing that she's been doing, another thing is working at this Christmas market that goes on in Vienna, where they're at, and so she's selling, and one of the things is chocolate potatoes, and so in my mind, I'm like, do they mean like potato chips dipped in chocolate? Like, okay, but I think it's just slices of potatoes and chocolate, but either way.
Nothing's like so you don't- it's chocolate designed to look like a little potato. No idea. No idea, but she pops this in this man's mouth that she hasn't even kissed yet.
Nick And Leslie (21:29.526)
And but like we don't get to know about her creations that she's made. And so like that frustrated me. she make a vision board? No, no vision board. Thank goodness. but, yeah, so it just wasn't, they put so much on this woman. And also we've watched of Grish, Grish cannot talk today. Great British baking show as well as Zumbo to know what, when you're making a ganache.
when you're I don't want to say mirror glazing chocolate, but do know I'm trying to say? Yeah. Tempered chocolate. Yeah. Tempering chocolate. It should not be that chunky. So it either wasn't chocolate or at least they could have had someone temper the chocolate before. I don't know, but it was like also are we tempering chocolate with just a spatula? A rubber spatula? That's a lot of work if that's the case. So and I don't know if it's going to get temperate at the right temperature. She's heating it, right?
Not just. Well, also like when you're like cooling it down at that same time. So it's, it's chunky chocolate and it does not look appetizing at all. And so the movie was good. I would give it a, a five. my gosh.
The CG of the decorating the Christmas trees everywhere, but like the garland, you could tell when she was gesturing it was CG because her hand went between the garland and the wall, you know, that should be like a sliver. they didn't mask it off. They did not mask it off. And it was quite one D. There was no depth to it at all. So it just looked like someone.
Photoshop. I'd love to see that. Yeah. And same thing with like the Garland in the distance and the trees in the distance. They were clearly CG'd on there. It was quite frosted over. and yeah, they had the same area that they were filming and they just kept putting curtains up and other decorations. So they were, they were doing their best, but it was, it was still cute. in a way, Maya and Wilfred were also a love triangle, but there was a couple of cute things.
Nick And Leslie (23:45.794)
Wilfred made a comment about, don't twist my taste buds. And that made me chuckle. There was something.
Nick And Leslie (23:58.754)
that I don't know. yeah. This wasn't a mystery for Hallmark mystery. also thought there'd be a mystery in it, but they're just Christmas miracles. there's a mirror. yeah. The miracle, you know, of course Henry changes the, or is able to come up with a different plan to incorporate the store so that they don't have to take it down. But it's the centerpiece of the architecture that they're building. I mean, is really kind of the same plot as. Yep.
as the Christmas candle, as the candle, the, towards the date before Christmas. Right. Yes. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. That was the first one we saw. the candle shop. Yeah. So it was basically the same thing. but Austrian. Barely Austrian. Barely Austrian. Maybe I should give it a four. It's no my Norwegian holiday. It's no my Norwegian holiday.
That's kind what I was expecting with the But there were a couple of cute lines that I liked though, and I unfortunately cannot skim too quickly. Chocolate meh. That's a good note. All right. Well, thank you for your rundown. really wanted a mystery Christmas. I know. I know. I thought it would be like, I'm surprised we lost grandma's recipe and we need to go find it in the walls. But instead we're looking like that's what I thought it
They just probably couldn't shove it into the schedule. They're like, no, we accidentally made too many movies. Too many movies. All right, well, tonight is another movie. Don't remember what, our Christmas story. yes. Yeah. Yeah. Or is it mismatched Christmas? that Sunday? That's That's Sunday. Okay. All right, well, we will see you in the next episode. Happy Christmas. Happy Christmas.
