For those of you that don’t know, Oprah Winfrey has her own television network called OWN (Oprah Winfrey Network). I’ve been wanting to watch their movies for awhile but I didn’t have a way to access it. This year they have released at least one of their Christmas movies - Mistletoe & Matrimony - on HBO Max. Let’s check it out.
Olivia (Ashlei Sharpe Chestnut) is an amazing wedding planner. When her sister, Rosemary (Asha James), announces not only her engagement to her girlfriend, Gwen (Krista Nazaire), but also that they want to get married on Christmas Eve in two weeks, Olivia tries her best to step up to the plate and plan her sister’s dream wedding. To add to the stress, Gwen has asked her best friend, Isaiah (Etienne Maurice), Olivia’s ex-boyfriend, to be the wedding photographer. Can Olivia give her sister everything she wants?
This is one of those movies where the family dynamic is crazy. The older sister gave up her dreams of traveling to take care of their mother after she had a bad fall. Then she’s trying to fulfill all of her sister’s insane requests, while everyone is else responds with “You know how your sister is.” (Who wants a horse-drawn carriage in Chicago in DECEMBER? You will die of frostbite.) To be honest, having to hang around her ex-boyfriend is the least of Olivia’s problems. Of course, everything resolves itself at the end but it is very stressful and annoying during the rest of the movie.
While I found Rosemary entitled and ungrateful, that doesn’t make the movie unwatchable. Just maybe stay away if you have a bit of a toxic family life. It may keep you from enjoying Mistletoe as much as you should.
Rating: I’m not sure the writer has ever seen winter.