This Hallmark-style Christmas fantasy rom-com is my new, second-fave contemporary version of the Scrooge story (not that there isn't a huge gap between it and the number-one on the list, Scrooged, with Bill Murray and Carol Kane). Susan is a book editor for a big publisher who hasn't had a hit in a long time, and she has lost her zeal not only for the job but also for the people in her life. So, instead of three ghosts, she is visited by her inner child. Little Suze appears in her apartment one particularly awful day and won't go away, determined to remind Susan about the joy that she used to derive from both people and from her work finding and presenting new authors and new books to the world.
After that, we get a lot of Hallmark city girl meets country boy tropes, but luckily, keeping the story centered in the publishing world makes it feel more original than merely formulaic.
But first, before the movie gets into any of that, we see a younger Susan at a Thanksgiving dinner, where she and her stick-in-the-mud husband Peter bicker as she brags about a wonderful new writer she has discovered.
Susan: Last week, I found the most extraordinary first-time writer.
Susan's Father: Sounds great.
Susan: He's beyond great --
Peter: Susan, darling, you know I hate it when you gush. William Faulkner is great. Dylan Lewis is just okay.
Susan: I thought you liked him, Peter.
Peter: I do like him. I also like Donne. It doesn't mean I think it's great.
Regardless of Peter's party-pooper vibes, Dylan becomes a best-selling author and helps cement Susan's place at work. However, the honeymoon doesn't go on forever. By the time the movie begins in the present, Susan is trying to get new pages from a very late Dylan. Not only that, but she has one author already two advances in with nothing to show for it and another writer unavailable because she's in for treatment at Betty Ford.
Susan: Dilly. Dylan, pick up, I know you're there. We need to talk. We have now entered the realm of the ridiculous. Walter is extremely upset and I have lost what little patience I have left. I need a real date when you are going to be finished, all right? No more excuses. Call me.
All these things lead Susan to question the choices that led her to her career. She isn't dating. She isn't doing anything she used to enjoy. She has become a sort of professional recluse and shut-in, at least outside of the office.
.jfif)
.jpeg)
