Cassandra Morgan

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Planes, Trains and Christmas Trees | 2023 Christmas Movies

Planes, Trains and Christmas Trees is the second movie of the season for Lifetime. I spent a lot of the movie thinking about how much the lead actor, Olivier Renaud, looks like Zac Efron. Like, I have watched other movies featuring this dude. I don’t know why this particular movie makes him look like that. Anyway….

Kayley (Kathryn Davis) is an event planner flying home to New York City. Brett (Olivier Renaud) is a sports agent also flying home to New York City. Thanks to a terrible snowstorm, all flights are cancelled. The pair team up to try to get home but end up stranded in Brett’s hometown of Redwood, Ohio. Since they are unable to leave, Kayley and Brett help his uncle plan a local Christmas festival.

Sigh. So. A lot of the movies I watch are just boring. The acting is fine, the plot is fine. It’s just fine. I want to say this movie is fine but….is there something more boring than boring? Like, nothing happens in this movie. Nothing. Kayley is ignoring her boyfriend’s phone calls but we never really find out why they are not getting along. (I can’t even say they are fighting! They don’t talk!) Cardboard man Brett doesn’t want to talk about anything. There are parts where Kayley acts weirdly around Brett’s family for no reason at all because then she’s all buddy-buddy with them. I really don’t understand this movie. I think they wanted to do a thing where Kayley has traumatic Christmas memories so she doesn’t like being around Brett’s family at Christmas but that never appears. And the awful thing is the acting and the story aren’t awful. There was so much potential here that was just wasted.

Rating: Can I live in the candy castle…by myself…no, seriously. Get out of my candy castle.