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eviemmitchell
Reviews
Love at the Thanksgiving Day Parade (2012)
Nice, but could be a lot better
I watched this movie last night and overall I came away feeling a bit dissatisfied. I am aware that I'm probably taking this too seriously; if you just want a typical cute Hallmark romcom, you will definitely enjoy this. And there WERE some genuine good parts- the leads were quite good actors, the main plotline was nice if a little overdone, and the main couple had chemistry and fairly nice build-up towards the end.
Only slight criticism on the creation of the romance is that the writers were clearly going for an enemies-to-lovers trope, but they struggled to get them from enemies to friends in a believable way. There were plenty of hints that the main guy, despite not getting along with the leading woman, fancied her a bit, but the woman seemed to absolutely hate the guy then all of a sudden she invited him to lunch at a 6 star restaurant out of nowhere.
Although the film had its good points, there are some flaws that I can't get past. Although the leading actress did a good job acting the script she was given, the script itself was awful. I don't know exactly how old the character is supposed to be, but she's clearly a grown woman, yet she acts like a 5 year old. The writers were so eager to communicate the fact that she hates this guy in the beginning that they made her act completely over the top and childish. Within moments of their meeting she was yelling at him and being very insulting and rude. Even when they were at work supposedly being colleagues she was shouting at him when he hadn't even done anything. And the worst part was that he didn't even stand up for himself and tell her not to talk to him like that. With enemies-to-lovers, the enemies part needs to be mutual, but this guy seemed to find it funny when she was yelling at him and overall behaving in an anti-social way. A real person with this woman's attitude would never function in society, but then again it's not a real person so maybe I should remember that.
The writers were also trying too hard to make the leading female character 'quirky' and included one or two tropes that made me cringe so hard I had an out of body experience. Her temper tantrums were obviously supposed to be part of this quirkiness (like 'ooh look she's so feisty') and she also did things like rehearsing her 'confession' in an elevator but being seen by the CCTV guys. Then there was a scene where she couldn't decide whether to buy a tub of ice cream or not and the guy was watching her and thinking it was cute, because oh my god, women need to consume food to live, that's so quirky and special of her. The writers also of course added in the line 'I'm not like most women' towards the end of the film, because obviously all other women are exactly the same and are just boring compared to this woman who yells at people she just met and eats ice cream.
Finally, the most unforgivable flaw of this movie was its treatment of Brian. Brian is the boyfriend of Emily before she dumps him to get with Henry (I only just remembered the characters' names, sorry). Giving one of the main couple a partner at the start of the movie is always a gamble because for it to work, you need to get it exactly right. You need the audience to want the main couple to end up together, and to achieve that, the character's current partner has to be really unlikeable. But there was nothing unlikeable about Brian. He's a marine biologist who researches whales, which is cool. He tells Emily that she's perfect and wouldn't change a thing about her. He even invites her to come on a boat trip with him for 2 years, which is commendable because I couldn't stand two minutes of Emily's company. The writers clearly understood that they needed to make Brian and Emily's relationship unappealing, but they didn't do this very well. When Emily reads Brian's book on whales, she doesn't enjoy it and throws it across the room, which just made me dislike her, not Brian. Then, they're not right for each other because Brian works on boats and Emily is afraid of boats. Brian is apparently a bad boyfriend for not knowing this, despite the fact that Emily never told him and they didn't mention that Brian has psychic powers. Their big break up moment comes when Emily thinks that Brian is going to propose to her but actually he asks to go on a boat research thing with him. Emily has another tantrum and storms out. I think this is supposed to make us hate Brian but I'm not sure why because he didn't do anything wrong here. How was he supposed to know Emily expected him to propose?? He actually proposed later on and she accepted him but then gave back the ring because...he wasn't watching the Thanksgiving parade. All I can say is, I wish I had a boyfriend where the worst thing he could possibly do to me is invite me on a boat trip and not watch a parade.
The ending where Emily and Henry kiss was cute I guess but all I could think about was poor Brian and how he really got screwed over by this movie just for being a good person.