Movie Review: Pride, Prejudice and Mistletoe (2018)

Synopsis: Instead of working for her father, Darcy chose to move to New York and start her own investment business. Returning home for Christmas for the first time in two years, Darcy helps her mother organize a fundraiser for the local youth center and learns the project will require her to work with a former classmate/debate team rival who now owns a restaurant and will be catering the event. As she tries to navigate all the obstacles that continue to make holding the charity event more difficult, she also learns her business partners, unhappy with her desire to help smaller clients, are trying to force her to sell her share of the company.

Who's in it? The movie stars Lacey Chabert, Brendan Penny, Sherry Miller, Art Hindle and Anna Hardwick.

Review: I had dinner (spaghetti) by the time my wife got home from work and, after a couple brief interruptions, we settled down with our plates and this movie. Overall, we were happy with our choice.

My wife and I are in full agreement that Lacey Chabert is our new favorite holiday movie actress. We haven't liked all the movies we've seen her in but, even when the movie itself wasn't overly great, we did love her performance. In fact, we were jokingly talking about which one of us would end up marrying her if something happened to one of us (at least I think my wife was joking).

This movie was no exception to that. Chabert was absolutely fantastic as Darcy. She was attractive, intelligent and, above everything else, just a kind and friendly person. How could you not love that character?

The movie itself was also much better than I was expecting because it wasn't as predictable as I thought it would be. A big part of the reason for this was what was going on back in New York with her partners trying to force her out of the company. There were a lot of reasons for her not to go back, especially since she had a new man in her life, Luke (Penny), but, since Darcy was a fighter, I wasn't sure if she would be so willing to give up a company she worked to build.

The challenge of getting the charity event up and running was also entertaining. Some of the problems had obvious solutions (such as finding someone to decorate Christmas trees so they could be auctioned off) but others, like not having as many people saying they would attend, required a bit more thought. Plus, with everything going on with her business, it was unclear whether Darcy would be able to stick around to finish the project or would be too distracted regardless.

I am also going to admit, the part about her and Luke under the mistletoe at multiple points throughout the movie was both cute and funny. I loved how she played a bit hard to get with him by insisting he research the history of mistletoe as a way of getting out of kissing him under it. It was one of those things that was obviously a bit corny but did add a bit of charm to the film too.

My only real complaint about the film is I do feel like it might have had too many characters. Between Darcy's family and ex-boyfriend (Morgan David Jones), I felt like there were a lot of people on the screen that really weren't needed and just cluttered things. 

In fact, the ex-boyfriend seemed to be there solely for the purpose of the cliche "I overheard part of a conversation and think she is getting back together with him" drama that is in too many films like this. I feel like you could have cut half the cast and the movie would not have been impacted in the slightest.

Final Opinion: Again, it might be because we have a crush on the star but my wife and I loved this film and would recommend it.

My Grade: A