‘Tis the season of Christmas romances and feel-good movies. In the past couple of months, Netflix has released several romcoms to celebrate the holiday season including Holidate (which I thoroughly enjoyed) and The Princess Switch 2: Switched Again which was also a fun watch. The latest addition to their holiday lineup is A California Christmas set in a ranch in California. Featuring real-life couple Lauren Swickard and Josh Swickard, the holiday rom-com, unfortunately, misses the mark.
The story revolves around Callie (Lauren), the owner of a ranch in Sonoma County, a small town south of San Francisco. She runs her family farm business, which is close to being bankrupt. Her father passed away in a car crash along with her fiancé three years ago, while her mother is currently battling cancer. She has one younger sister, which means she is responsible for the family. Given how many blows life has given her, Callie is bitter and aggrieved.
On the other hand, Joseph Van Aston (Josh) is a rich, spoiled womanizer who is tasked by his business tycoon mother to take a trip to Petaluma and charm Callie into selling her farm to Van Aston Enterprises before the big company’s Christmas party.
Joseph, who is touted to be someone who can “charm any female” walks into Callie’s farm where he is assumed to be new the ranch hand Manny. Joseph does not make any effort to convince them otherwise after he finds out that Callie is in no mood to sell the land and is ready to put up a fight with a representative of the Van Astons. Joseph’s loyal butler and chauffeur ends up running into the real Manny and bribes him into not going to farm.
Joseph is so casual and slips into the role of a ranch hand with such ease that it is hard to imagine that just a few hours ago he was living the high life in San Fransisco. The first half an hour is a complete drag as we along with Joseph learn how to do farm chores. Once you make it past that, things get better.
As Joseph settles into his role and Callie warms up to him, sparks fly between the two and a romance begins to brew, though I do feel that for a Christmas romance film it was not enough. Instead of showing up Joseph farming, it would have been nicer if they had shown some more romantic scenes between Joseph and Callie. I have to add here that Joseph labouring away on the farm shirtless was perhaps the only good thing about those scenes.
Callie’s character was also very underdeveloped. Considering she was one of the main protagonists, her screen time was less as compared to Joseph. Lauren also gave a bland performance and came across as someone very dull, which is perhaps why her scenes weren’t very engaging. On the contrary, Josh managed to breathe life into his character, carrying the weight of the entire film on his shoulders. The two leads also shared great chemistry – their real-life relationship reflected on the screen.
Meanwhile, the real Manny and Leo (Ali Afshar) provide much-needed comic relief and are a breath of fresh air in the film. Their scenes are some of the most entertaining and the only ones with comedy in them.
Barring the final scene, there is little reference to Christmas and the lack of snow does not help – the movie might have sold better as a summer romance.
A California Christmas would not rank very high on my list of rom-com recommendations. But if you a hardcore fan of the genre like me you might enjoy it somewhat.
