New Years Day 2021 starts out much like Boxing Day did – I’m up early, creeping around in the dark in my jammies while the girls are asleep, so I can squeeze in a Christmas movie before they get up. At this point I should mention that I still have not told Katie – or anyone for that matter – what I’m up to. It’s starting to feel like a shameful, dirty secret, but I figure I’ll get around to it.
As I pin the new calendar to the kitchen wall, there’s a crushing realisation that it might be a new year, but not much has changed. We’re still locked down, people are still dying, but hopefully, just hopefully, we will have better days to look forward to.
To ring in the new year, I opt for another Candace Cameron Bure joint, 2018’s A Shoe Addict’s Christmas. Though the film’s title gives me shivers, I reassure myself that Cameron Bure is a safe pair of hands and it can’t be that bad. In a high concept yarn from director Michael Robison she flexes her comedic sitcom muscles as Noelle (yup), an avid lover of shoes who gets pulled into a decidedly Dickensian festive adventure, involving ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future. The title’s a bit misleading as shoes don’t feature much in the plot and it’s not like she’s snorting them or anything, but it does involve magic shoes, so it’s another pleasantly offbeat one.
This time around, Cameron Bure is a singleton who accidentally gets locked in the department store where she works on Christmas Eve night and meets a quirky guardian angel (Jean Smart). Through the trying on of supernatural shoes, Noelle meets the aforementioned spirits who help her rediscover her happiness and maybe (ok, definitely) find true love with a blandly handsome fireman (Luke Macfarlan). It’s a novel twist on the Dickens formula, with each fancy pair of shoes she tries on transporting her to a key moment in her life , allowing her to consider the mistakes she’s made.
Top marks to the film’s set designers, who make the department store setting look festively fabulous, complete with a Christmas tree made out of designer shoes. Practically every frame is crammed with red and green baubles, sparkly lights and bows galore. If nothing else, these films tend to look delicious.
Cameron Bure’s no Meryl Streep, but she brings just the right amount of kooky charm and sass to allow you to buy into this ridiculous story.
Smart is similarly ace as the rookie angel, full of inspired dottiness and many silly, rambling stories that remind me of Friends’ Lisa Kudrow at her Phoebe Buffay-best.
This is unashamedly a movie about Christian faith, about dealing with regret but continuing to look forward with positive vibes. It’s utterly drippy, but after a week of this stuff, I feel like I’m past that now. I’ve let the sentimental cheesy magic in and it tastes good, though lord knows how long that will last.
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