Mrs. Nick is a menace. | Holiday 2021 // A Christmas Switch

 When singer Audrey and record executive Julia collide at the mall, they wake up in each other's lives the next morning. As Christmas looms closer, the two women rush to figure out how to help each other and switch back before they miss Christmas.

This was the wildest Christmas movie I've seen in a while. And for all the wrong reasons. When the premise of a movie is a body switch, it's understood, or should be understood, that the causal circumstances of the essence swap include personality failings on the parts of the victims/participating parties that will likely be fixed once they have experience life in their counterpart's body. Cool, baseline logic established. In A Christmas Switch (2018), Audrey and Julia swap bodies. Audrey's a loving, giving, all about family, Christmas loving spirit, who is the financially "poor" of the pair, despite living in a spacious house in California. Julia's a successful CEO who loves her job and, understandably, doesn't have time for her family, or at least not as much as they'd like. It's almost like the bills for their expense lifestyle have to get paid somehow. 

If you haven't guessed it by now, I took issue with the supposedly failings respectively, but especially with Julia. Despite her active efforts at the beginning of the movie to connect with her family, albeit a singular instance of unanswered cell phone calls is not proof of disdain, she's made out to be cold and distant and oblivious to the state of her family relations, again, despite having made allusion to them herself. Audrey, on the other hand, is presented as near perfect. Her shenanigans, in Julia's body, bring Julia closer to her family, from a distance. In other words, it's not until Julia sees Audrey masquerading as Julia and acting out of character, shifting focus from the things she loves to do, her job and high maintenance, highly successful lifestyle, that she learns the true value of interpersonal relationship. High career woman bad, sacrificing mother figure ideal. Cased closed!

Nay! With five minutes left to the lesson learned climax, Audrey learns that she is a messy bitch who doesn't know how to say no. In fact, if she had said no and inserted structure into her family life, her non-contributing partner might have contributed earlier! It's her fault her husband wasn't helping! If she was orderly, her daughter would have been reading better! It's not as if her daughter was in school surrounded by educational and other support staff who could have addressed it! Self-sacrificing mama needs to be assertive to be a better self-sacrificing mama!

Was this a cheesy Christmas movie? Absolutely. Were there cute cringe moments? Of course. Was there some nonsensical plot covered in a loose and unexplained magical plot driver that sets up for the most appropriate body swap? You betcha! Because who doesn't want to end wondering if the 5 year old and the 17 year old girl children swap bodies instead of their barely there, bare minimum fathers? The mastermind behind this all was a "Mrs. Nick," who insisted on the importance of being nice. Apparently, men have nothing to learn.

Did I absolutely enjoy watching this, cringe and all? I wouldn't be writing this if I didn't.* I would watch this again even. Especially in a marathon, it was stupid fun.

*That is in fact a lie, I would be writing this as it is part of a themed series.

Watch out for my Holiday 2021 (#Holiday2021) series, where I think I'll be recapping Holiday movies I'm watching this season and other festive things if they appear.