I confess that I am not a fan of country music so, with that in mind, I'm slightly dreading 2018’s Time For Me to Come Home For Christmas, the tale of a businesswoman who crosses paths with a handsome country music star when both are booked on the same flight to Tulsa during the holidays. Megan Park is Cara, trying to get home for Christmas when she has a flirty airport encounter with dishy Heath Sawyer ( Josh Henderson). They have a standard meet-cute that perfectly illustrates that it’s easy to get away with spilling hot coffee on someone as long as you’re good looking.
It's an unwritten rule that if mismatched folk are trying to catch a flight home just in time for the Holidays, there must be a storm that grounds the flight, forcing them to make unlikely alliances and pool resources to road trip it home any way possible. Yes, this is Planes, Trains and Automobiles, with a romantic twist, less laughs and lots more dodgy country tunes.
Heath hides from Cara that he’s actually really famous, but she’s not a country fan, so has no idea he’s kind of a Big Deal. This leads to a few silly moments where random women swoon for him, leaving Cara scratching her head. He’s a good ol’ boy who loves his momma but also under pressure from the record company to write a Christmas song. Quite how he expects to write, record it and have it in the charts in just three days is anyone’s guess.
It's a satisfying enough trip, though depending on your tastes, mileage will vary on the musical performance scenes. Any chance the film gets to have this guy sing, they absolutely take it, which all feels a bit forced. Still, the chicks seem to dig it.
As is the way in such films, Heath and Cara keep bumping into each other on the road and romance is inescapable. Naturally, their encounters inspire Heath to write the drippy song of the film’s title. This involves a number of pretty cringey scenes of the crooner alone in hotel rooms having eureka moments as he strums away. Worse, it all culminates with the couple serenading Heath’s sister on Christmas morning, presenting the tune to her as a Christmas present. I'd have been happier with socks or something.
It's terribly mawkish stuff, but it’s not a bad film, just an overly sincere one. This deals with heavier themes, like bereavement and wrestling with grief, so it’s a little more affecting than most of the others I’ve seen so far, while offering glimpses of multiple beautiful frosty US locations. It’s not as terrible as expected and has a sweet message about family values that feels as American as the apple pie that these two flirtatiously bake together.
Not long after watching this, though, I stick on the news and find that many of America’s values have been trampled in the mud. It’s the evening of January 6th 2021 and, across the pond in Washington D.C., a mob of over 2,000-supporters of Donald Trump have stormed the Capitol Building in a sad attempt to overturn his defeat in the 2020 presidential election. It's grim, but gripping viewing, giving the impression that the United States could be on the verge of another civil war. Thankfully, it all dies down eventually, but I go to bed with a bit of a cloud over my head...
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