A Very Merry Mix-Up (2013)

Movie Info

You really are interested in the real estate surrounding my business…

Antique store owner Alice Chapman (Alicia Witt) has just become engaged to corporate real-estate agent William Mitchum (Scott Gibson). When William is forced to stay in the city, he sends Alice to meet his parents, but a twist of fate has her lost in William’s hometown with no means to find his family. Luckily, Alice runs into Billy’s brother Matt Mitchum and Matt is able to take Alice to meet the family. Accepted and loved by the Mitchums, Alice is going to find her world turned inside out…and a very merry mix-up has begun!

Directed by Jonathan Wright, A Very Merry Mix-Up is a Hallmark made-for-TV holiday movie. The film premiered on November 10, 2013 and received average reviews.

Looking at a list of Hallmark holiday movies (largely starring Alicia Witt or Candice Cameron-Bure), the description of A Very Merry Mix-Up had me wanting to check out the ridiculous nature of the story…unfortunately instead of being campy fun, the movie falls into the Hallmark schmaltzy mush.

I will join your happy cult!

The story is insanely unbelievable, so I guess that makes it romantic? Alice ends up with the wrong family for over a day and wins their hearts because (like the family), she’s a true romantic and loves the holiday season to an unreasonable level. If the story of the crazy, wacky mix-up isn’t bad enough, the dialogue for the movie sinks the film…it sounds like a child’s perception of how people in love talk and what they think adults talk about during the holiday. The saccharine level of the film could give you diabetes.

I can’t say if the cast is awful since they are having to deliver truly awful dialogue. Alicia Witt seems to just read her lines while Mark Wiebe might as well be using a handbook on how to woo a woman. The flipside of Wiebe is Scott Gibson who plays an almost 1980s ruthless corporate raider who is so obviously shallow that it makes you question Witt’s character’s intelligence (“How many square feet is this place” he asks talking about her shop which he obviously wants to sell out from under her). The whole Mitchum family (the Billy Mitchum version) is nauseating…playing a game where they tell what they like about each other while the evil William Mitchum family just fights and drinks smoothies instead of eating Christmas cookies.

Wait…she ended up with the sensitive bench maker instead of the corporate raider?!?! Didn’t see that coming…

The movie looks fine and that is the only redeeming factor. The town is of course a snowglobe of Christmas magic as you’d expect so it is impossible for love not to happen (as the film would make you believe). If the movie had looked bad it would have fit the rest of the film.

A Very Merry Mix-Up isn’t unusual in the terms of Hallmark holiday films. The film is sudsy and soppy as most Hallmark films are and I realize I’m not the audience they are going for. I do question why the target audience doesn’t demand more for the formulaic films that are spit out at the holidays…just because it is Hallmark and holiday doesn’t mean it has to be a load of clichés. Miss this Mix-Up and just watch one of the more enjoyable holiday movies instead.