I wonder about how it works at greeting card companies. I had a tangential relationship with American Greetings once upon a time, but I never got to the copy floor of the greeting card department. But even in my daydreams of a new job drafting pretty rhymes and pithy jokes about birthdays, I never imagined what it is displayed here in Seasons Greetings, starring Laura Bell Bundy (super awesome in Legally Blonde – The Musical,) and some guy with dark hair. I do a lot of research into these recaps, can’t you tell?
Darcy Blake is the top card writer at Harrington House of Cards – whose logo looks exactly like Hallmark, even though this movie aired on the UP channel, not the Hallmark channel, so it seems very, very, deliberate. This card company has, as one of it’s major card brands, a get well line called Booger Badger. A cartoon badger with snot. Yup. That’s what we’re dealing with, people.
And apparently they decide on cards by committee – they all sit around a table and read their work, but one at a time. It doesn’t seem too productive. How do they get anything done?
As we start the movie, the patriarch of Harrington steps down in favor of his grandson, Will (dark-hair-guy), who has all sorts of ideas to change the tenor of the company. He doesn’t get the appeal of greeting cards, he wants things to be punchy, and twitter-y, and snapchatty, and short. (He gives her edits during their committee meeting! Shocking!) So, naturally he butts heads with Darcy, who is all about cards help people connect, y’all.
Will has a bitchy red-head partner named Taylor (very severe hair-cut), who wants to sell the company to invest in a tech company. Taylor has a degree in nuclear physics, and an MBA from Harvard, and that, plus her haircut, is all we know about her. Darcy has a sassy work best friend named Joy who writes the sympathy cards. And there’s another guy Brian who dresses up like a chicken whenever someone in the company has a birthday. I.Want.To.Work.There.
One of Will’s ideas to bring the company to the 21st century is a “Darcy” app – and originally designed, it was a cartoon blonde in a bikini who just walked around the computer screen. Ew. Will has the good sense to put clothes on the digital app, and then they go out for Valentine’s dinner – because that’s what you do with your boss. After a bunch of champagne and some weird chocolate, there’s a kiss that he clearly initiates, and she immediately apologizes for. And this severely pisses me off in this climate that we’re in – because she didn’t do anything, why should she apologize? He does too, but still, there’s a power dynamic there that makes this type of interaction icky. Or maybe I’m just reading into it.
The movie trips through the other holidays, and Will thaws out about greeting cards, and Darcy is…the same? He nominates her for a writing award for greeting cards – THEY HAVE THOSE? and she wins, and he takes her to the award ceremony and then they walk home in the sunlight eating ice cream – so exactly when did this award ceremony take place – time means nothing, and I don’t get it. All sorts of feelings are going on between the two of them, but it’s still inappropriate because he’s the boss – but I don’t think they care!
Closer to Christmas, the company is still ‘soft’ and Severe Haircut says they need to cut more staff. Dark hair Will says ok, but not the creative staff. But Severe Haircut is totally jealous of Darcy and her brand of super niceness, and she fires the creative staff!
A comedy of errors with the guy in the chicken suit has Darcy falling off the roof into the worlds largest fruitcake. Will visits her at the hospital to tell her he loves her, but Darcy says she hates him because he fired all her friends. Oh he leaves so crestfallen! Poor Dark Hair Will.
Off camera, his grandfather dies. Darcy sends him a card. Will hires back the creative staff, and when Darcy finds out, she tries to go see Will to tell him how she feels but…did anyone else see that Severe Haircut would totally block Darcy in her pursuit of Will? Because she did!!! And Darcy leaves-now she’s crestfallen. It’s heavy stuff at Harrington House of Cards.
But all is not lost. Will fires Severe Haircut (on the street) and then gets all of Darcy’s friends to assist in his proposal of marriage.
They.have.been.on.one.freaking.date and now they are getting married. Why not.
Everyone is happy and we’re done. Laura Bell Bundy, you need to be in better stuff because you have a lot of talent that is being wasted in this type of crap. And Dark Hair Guy….um…you looked nice in this movie.
Another holiday movie finished, all done just so you don’t have to.
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