Lifetime - The Holiday Proposal Plan (2023)
Travel around the world and all you get is this lousy proposal.
IMDB: Lifetime (Nicely) → The Holiday Proposal Plan (2023)
Currently available to watch: Amazon Prime Video
Is this connected to any holidays?: Christmas.
Synopsis: Sonny is a travel writer and her best friend Bree hosts a travel show. Bree worries that her boyfriend Jarod is going to break up with her. Instead of communicating with Jarod, Bree and Sonny conspire to get Jarod to propose. Bree also ropes Sonny’s ex-boyfriend Kip into the scheme and all four spend Christmas week at a B&B owned by Sonny’s parents.
To bring Bree and Jarod together, and have something to write about for work, Sonny sets up a week of events showcasing 12 Christmas traditions from around the world. During the international celebrations Sonny and Kip fight a lot about their old relationship, and eventually start to communicate in a way they didn’t before. They reconcile and flirt, but then Kip finds out about the article Sonny is supposed to write, gets really angry and leaves. Bree and Jarod talk with Kip about how he is treating Sonny and what he is punishing her for. On Christmas Eve, Jarod and Bree propose to each other and Kip returns to ask for a second chance with Sonny. They kiss under some mistletoe.
Leads: Tatyana Ali plays Sonny Kravitz, and Jesse Kove plays her ex-boyfriend Kip Bravo. I don’t even know what to do with these character names.
Other actors who regularly feature in the Lifetime universe?: Sonny’s stepmom, played by Robin Riker, has done a bunch of Lifetime movies. I don’t recognize the rest of the actors.
PoC characters?: This is the third movie I’ve watched so far that has a PoC in the lead, and I need to point out that two of those three aired on Lifetime, NOT Hallmark. Some of this is just the luck of the randomizer. Hallmark definitely has leads of Color, especially in the last few years. But we are almost 30 movies into my little experiment and it is Lifetime 2 / Hallmark 1 in terms of lead representation. This movie also features several secondary and tertiary characters of Color.
LGBTQIA+ characters?: Bree’s brother Jonathan and his husband Victor, who show up to help Bree and Sonny with the various world traditions and covert article writing. They are more gay stereotypes than actual people. Hey ladies, these guys are good at throwing parties, decorating, are well groomed and they have sibilance.
Tropes: Workaholic Working Over Christmas Holidays; Thats Not How This Works; Supposedly Independent Woman Desperate To Get Engaged; Tricking A Guy Into A Romantic Holiday; Stuck With An Ex; Holiday at a B&B; Discombobulated By A Naked Male Torso; Gosh Other Cultures Have Fun Traditions; Nobody Is Allowed to Remain Single; Eavesdropping Moves the Narrative Along; Gay Guys Help Straight Women Get the Straight Guy; Having a Conversation With Your Ex You Should Have Had While Dating; Cooking Montage; Setting Basic Boundaries; Romance Ended For Dumb Reasons; Ring In a Stocking; Christmas Eve Proposal; Romantic Reconciliation; It Ends With a Kiss.
Does it pass the Bechdel test?: Yes, in the opening scene! Sonny and her boss, Genevieve, chat about work. See how easy this is people?
Meet cute: The romantic couples in this movie are either long term partners, or exes reluctantly spending time together, so no Meet Cutes.
Does it seem like the leads actually want to fuck?: Not really. Sonny and Kip are at each other’s throats for half of the movie because they are bitter exes, but even when things start to thaw between them, the two actors have a slightly awkward chemistry. It isn’t juvenile, it just feels like they are performing attraction to each other rather than actually being attracted to each other.
Are there any kids in this and are they realistic?: No kids!
What city is this supposed to take place in?: Los Angeles and some mountain town a reasonable drive from L.A. The credits tell me its Big Bear Lake.
What crazy occupations do the leads have?: Sonny is a writer and editor at a travel magazine and Kip is a farmer.
How ridiculous are the various holiday traditions featured in this movie?: This movie features 12 Christmas traditions from around the world as part of the ‘Get-Bree-Engaged’ scheme. I’ll discuss these more in depth below, for now all you need to know is that the international traditions aren’t more or less ridiculous than any American traditions, but doing all of them in a week to get a proposal is ridiculous.
How weird are the sets/makeup: I’m not trying to be nit picky, but there is something weird about Kip’s hair in this. It might be the perfectly smooth, asymmetrical 90s swoop style. I’m not sure.
Lifetime-ism (aka a “truism” that Lifetime treats as universally agreed upon): If your male partner isn’t proposing or appears to be having some romantic doubts, you should definitely participate in all sorts of insane, manipulative shenanigans to coerce the guy into proposing. Gals want guys who aren’t sure if they want to get married!
Which performance of femininity does this value?: Two high powered, career women who have both won a ton of accolades turn into middle-school-level nitwits at the desire to get engaged. I guess a proposal makes someone regress about 20 years?
Is the mistletoe really mistletoe? Aka are there red or white berries?: White berries for the win!
Did anyone else notice?: Sonny’s workplace is super toxic and I can’t believe it is a thing to bribe someone to work over Christmas after you’ve already approved their paid time off. Also, magazines generally write about 2 months ahead. A writer would not be asked to generate a Christmas article during the week leading up to Christmas. Sonny’s idea, an article that explores Christmas traditions from the around the world, is somehow treated as a new idea that has never been done before. But it has! It has even been done in multiple other Hallmark and Lifetime movies.
I don’t understand all these machinations meant to convince Jarod to propose? Why would you want to marry someone who doesn’t want to marry you? Also if she wants to get married so badly, why can’t Bree just propose to Jarod? The fact that Jarod has a ring and Bree doesn’t isn’t a real obstacle. Bree can just get a ring or propose without one. That is also physically possible. If you want to marry someone, then just fucking ask them. If you want to be proposed to, then either decide that its more important than an engagement or, after you’ve proposed, ask your new fiancé to propose to you at some point as well. If you want to feel “chosen” more than you want to be engaged, there might be some feelings and thoughts to work out in therapy before an engagement.
Real question, what does it mean to be the “Katie Couric of women’s travel”?
The 12 traditions that we see are all basically related to singleness and various traditions/superstitions about marriages and weddings. As Jarod says part way through the 3rd tradition (just wait Jarod, there are 9 more to go!) “Wow, you’re really knocking us on our heads with that whole marriage thing aren’t ya?”
About halfway through the movie we get the Sonny and Kip break up story from Sonny’s POV. Apparently, a year before this movie she was going to spend Christmas with his family in Santa Barbara, CA. She missed it because she got caught in a tropical storm or hurricane or something and all plane travel was paused. Kip was upset and said he needed a break to think about things, and Sonny told Kip to take a permanent break. Sonny tells her Dad that she understands the break up is her fault and it’s clear that she’s not thrilled about it, but she also doesn’t want to give up travel for Kip.
Conveniently Kip is nearby as Sonny has this conversation with her parents and he gets to eavesdrop on her description of their breakup. And then the bit that I object to happens. Sonny’s parents tell her that she should consider doing less of this thing she loves and gets paid to do, aka travel, because it would have helped her keep Kip as a boyfriend.
Sonny: Why should I change my whole life and travel less just to appease him?
Dad: I’m just saying…all relationships are a compromise and maybe you could have traveled a bit less?
Stepmom: And maybe, he could have gone with her a bit more.
Sonny: Exactly! Thank you Paulette.
Dad: Okay. But did you ever ask?
Turns out Sonny never asked, but of course Kip never offered either. And (spoiler alert) I promise you that when Sonny and Kip do get back together at the end, it probably won’t involve Kip traveling more but it definitely will involve Sonny deciding to travel less and it will be framed in such a way that she is choosing this diminishment for some reason that seems like its best for her.
This bit of dialogue makes me want to snarl:
Bree: Do you still think about having kids?
Sonny: Not much lately. I mean, of course I’ve thought about it. I thought about it a lot more when I met Kip. But… you can’t have kids traveling. As we know. There’s a lot we can’t do.
Bree: But we figure it out. We’re women. We endure childbirth. There’s not a lot we can’t do. Plus you’d be home a lot more if you started working on that book you’ve been talking about doing.
Sonny: You know I talked to Genevieve about it. She was into it. Yeah, it’s something to start thinking about. But we just struck gold with all of these new fans. How are Girls Gone Global, if I’m stuck at home?
Bree: Well but the fans are into us. Not so much the places we go to. Why don’t we travel together? I can propose this to the network. Mmmmhmm. Gals Gone Global; The Wild Wild West-Coast edition.
Sonny: Oh, that’s not bad. Genevieve said that the network wanted to partner with us again.
Bree: Oh, and we could do a podcast. And then you could work on your book from the road.
Sonny: Oh, that sounds so perfect.
First of all, you can definitely have kids while traveling. There are in fact many very successful travel bloggers whose whole deal is traveling with kids. I think the fact that Kip is a farmer is a much bigger obstacle than any theoretical kids might be.
Second, what is with this defeatist attitude? “There’s a lot we can’t do.” Says who? Maybe you can’t join a weekly trivia league at your local pub or do the school run every day, but what else can’t you do because you are a travel writer? I guess you can’t be in a romantic relationship with someone who expects you to be at home all the time, but that is just a matter of a bad pairing not an actual restriction caused by your career.
Third, these exciting new ideas sound just as travel and work intensive as Sonny’s old way of working. In fact, it sounds even busier. A travel show plus a podcast plus writing a book in your “spare” time is way more work than traveling for a magazine and writing an article or two.
Things that work for me?: I love traveling, so I enjoyed seeing the 12 traditions from around the world. I would have preferred to have them happen in 12 different locations, but I get that Lifetime has a limited budget, and also it didn’t fit the storyline. Now, lets explore these 12 traditions that are supposed to incite Jarod to propose.
First we see Risgrynsgröt, aka Swedish Rice Pudding, which happens across the Scandiwegian area, and seems to have different versions of this almond finding thing. Sometimes the tradition states that the person who finds the almond will get married within the year, as in this movie. It can also be eaten amongst children and then the almond just means getting a chocolate pig, or other small gift.
Second is Wigilia, a Polish Christmas Eve dinner and hanging fruit on a tree? Originally apples because of the tree of knowledge in the Bible, but now lots of fruits. Also the movie has single ladies pull a green straw from underneath the table cloth at dinner, and whoever gets it will be the next to get married. Seriously? Is this linked to the hay under the table tradition in Poland? Is that straw as in fresh, green hay? Technically this is 3 traditions from Poland.
Third is the Czech Republic with a tradition wherein single ladies go outside and toss a shoe or boot over their shoulder towards the front door of the house. If the heel of the shoe lands facing the door then these ladies are destined to remain single for another year. But if the front of the shoe is facing the door then they will be married before the next Christmas. Another Czech tradition involves cherry blossom twigs. Picking one out from a bunch, putting it in a jar with water and, wait for it, if any of the buds blossom by Christmas Eve the person who picked that twig will be married within a year. Ugh. Shoot me now.
Fourth there is burning cedar branches. No one mentions where this is a tradition and or how it might advance the whole ‘get married’ plot line.
Fifth is Ireland’s “Women’s Christmas” which usually takes place on January 6 and is an inversion ritual day. Women take the day off and men fully engage in domestic labor, cleaning, and cooking and child rearing while the women rest and socialize. They also put fake red berries in a wreath like Ireland, but that seems more decorative than predictive.
Sixth is caroling by candlelight a la Australia and which gives Kip the opportunity to do a not good Australian accent. Really, it hurts the ears.
Seventh the back garden is turned into a Filipino Christmas Lantern Festival. This mostly seems to be a decorated outdoor space, a table full of tasty looking food, a roaring fire, and couples dancing to Christmas carols. Quite nice actually.
Eighth is colorful underwear (or pajamas in this case) like in Italy, along with Italian Christmas cookies.
Ninth is a French holiday feast that ends with a King’s Cake. The King’s Cake is like the Swedish pudding at the beginning. They put in a little gold charm and whoever gets the slice with the charm chooses a holiday prince or princess. Not clear on what the holiday royalty gets, but I’m going to go out on a limb and say its romantic favors and/or marriage.
Tenth is the British tradition of the Yule Log. I lived in Britain for years and never once lit up or even saw a Yule Log.
Eleventh is the German tradition of opening stockings on Christmas Eve. Jarod tells a silly Germanic legend about magical things happening on Christmas Eve. Apparently animals speak (this is also a Polish Christmas Eve idea), the righteous see the rivers flowing with wine instead of water, trees suddenly have fruit, mountains open themselves up to show off their hidden gemstones, and bells ring under the sea. This is a lead up to his proposal, because apparently Bree makes Jarod feel like every day is Christmas Eve.
Twelfth is the American tradition of kissing under mistletoe, which allows our romantic leads to get in that movie ending kiss.
I love love love that Bree also proposes to Jarod and that he gets his own engagement ring. No bonus points because Bree doesn’t actually say the words or get down on one knee, but I’m celebrating the fact that this movie even acknowledges that a woman can fucking propose if she wants to.
Final Thoughts: There is something a uncomfortable about treating traditions from other countries as novelties or tools for manipulation rather than as deep rituals with worth of their own. Experiencing other places and cultures of the world shouldn’t just be a shallow, exotic thing. Even if you can’t afford to visit all the other countries and places you might like, and most of us can’t, you can still explore the world in a respectful and expansive way. Doing international traditions as a tool to finagle a proposal is reductive and awkward.
Stars out of 5: 1.5