On the penultimate Tuesday Night is Film Night night before Advent, we squeeze in another one of those "made for TV" type films that seem to saturate the obscure movie channels at this time of year. Sometimes you can find a hidden gem, but will we be thinking that after we watch;
Christmas Baggage
No. Think on.
Having said that, the film does star Cheryl Ladd who is at least well known. It also stars Barry Bostwick. Who? Exactly.
Just to clear up some confusion, on TV it was billed as Christmas Baggage, on Amazon it is sold as Holiday Baggage and on IMDB it is labelled just as Baggage. Anyway to the plot.
Sarah Murphy (Ladd) is a doctor, her estranged husband Pete Murphy (Bostwick) is an older man with an eye for the younger woman and left the marital home some years ago, eventually hooking up with a younger woman who he intends to marry. Pete and Sarah have two daughters who are now both young women; Holly and Lisa. Holly is being a surrogate mother to her sister's baby. Don't looked confused, it does make sense (I think) and we have those inevitable Christmas plot twists; baby being born around Christmas, to someone called Holly. How convenient?
So the crux of the matter is, due to their father's wanderings and splitting up the family, whilst breaking his wife's heart, the daughters are not really speaking to Pete. Pete and Sarah have never divorced and with the intention to marry his young sweetheart, Pete visits Sarah to discuss signing off the paperwork.
Cue farcical plot thread number one; Pete has a massive heart attack, luckily with his medically trained wife at hand and ends up in hospital. However, considering he has had a huge Myocardial Infarction he ends up walking away from hospital a couple of days later, seemingly right as rain. It's a Christmas miracle and no mistake!
Given this shock and the subsequent checking out of the hospital, Sarah invites Pete to stay with her and the girls for the holidays (Thanksgiving through into December) and some time to recuperate, with the proviso that he makes peace with their daughters and tries to reconcile their differences. This is easier said than done. And to be fair the middle section of the film, which concentrates on this element of the storyline, does offer up some hope that the film may be worthwhile watching. Indeed some of the acting from Ladd and Bostwick and some of the supporting cast was actually quite good. However, good acting cannot save a weak story and although there was potential it was let down in some style, by a farcical, nonsensical unclear and possibly ludicrous ending. (Farcical plot twist number two).
You would expect that there would be some real conclusion to the film, as the plot had hotted up in the middle (when I say hotted up, it was lukewarm at best), but no. Although we were held in limbo by the attempted reconciliation between father and daughters, the death of Lisa's father-in-law (and family friend) plus the impending birth of the surrogate child and the imminent wedding of the globe trotting Pete, once the finalisation to the story started it frittered away in a hurried, saccharin sweet, overly complicated, but not thought through way. Which let the film down totally, leaving us confused and scratching our heads, unsure what happens to Pete's wife-to-be as he is seemingly getting back with Sarah. Or is he? We guess so, but can't be certain. No loose ends tied up. They say the devil is in the detail and there was no detail here at all.
A very poor ending, after a mediocre start, albeit with a promising middle.
Next week is the first week of Advent, so we'll have a proper Christmas film!
TNiFN Rating 47%
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