Sense, Sensibility & Snowmen (2019)
(On TV, December 2020) It’s December, and Christmas movies have invaded the airwaves. Movies that would never get any airtime at any other time of the year now get a few scheduled showings at prime-time hours, sometimes on several channels. They’re usually low-budget features made to formula, with only the barest of distinctions to allow viewers to remember if they’ve already seen it. But Christmas romantic comedies can be fun even when they’re mediocre: no one gets killed, nihilism is the furthest thing from the film’s goals and everyone looks cute. (Even though female leads of Christmas romantic comedies are never too attractive – something about being relatable, probably.) If I had to see at least one Christmas romantic comedy this year, I let myself be drawn in by Sense, Sensibility & Snowmen – surely the Jane Austen-inspired title suggested a more literate movie, right? Well, no. Aside from a few character names, there really isn’t much here drawn from classical literature – the bait-and-switch is clearly within the realm of false promises. Here, we have a woman having trouble sticking to a job, then meeting a handsome client in time to organize his Christmas party. The rest of the plot is as predictable as it’s irrelevant – it’s about the two leads walking in the Christmas market together, being antagonistic until they’re not, suffering through the usual mistaken-intentions subplots and reconciling on the evening of the 24th of December. Despite the blatantly misleading title, Sense, Sensibility & Snowmen is not a terrible film – but I say that having done something else while hearing-more-than-watching it.