Leave that Christmas tree alone. We got plenty of sap right here.

By Jason Hink

And sappy is indeed the word when it comes to cable TV romantic comedies, which we’ve been reviewing here lately at Drunk TV in-between sips of nog and vodka…and not just any rom-coms; we’re talkin’ Christmas rom-coms! This time it’s 2021’s Christmas in the Pines from Imagicomm Entertainment and INSP Films, starring real-life married couple Jillian Murray and Dean Geyer along with Grant Goodeve and Leigh-Allyn Baker. Our friends at Mill Creek Entertainment are helping distribute this film on DVD for those who still have DVD players (count me as one of them!).

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It’s Christmastime in The City, and single hottie Ariel Colt (Jillian Murray), a cosmopolitan magazine writer (naturally), hits the mall for a holiday shopping outing with mom Amy (Leigh-Allyn Baker) and younger sister Jasmine (Victoria Staley). Jasmine really wants…no, she needs that ultra-expensive luxury purse. But what does older sister Ariel need? She’s single, after all, and love has so far eluded her, finding her once again alone for the holidays. But she’s taking it in stride, and maybe some Christmas luck will happen after she bumps into a mall Santa (Stephen Ware) who gives her some cryptic life advice (just what we need from our mall Santas, right?).

But Ariel has her own Christmas plans for the Colt family when she shuffles off for an important phone call. You see, Ariel has a dream of buying an idyllic country cottage, a place she and her family can visit for vacations and holidays, to get away from the metro rat race. That phone call was from her realtor (Eden Lee), who has good news: Ariel is the new owner of the gorgeous country cottage she’s been angling to purchase, and it’s time to visit and get the keys. But when she arrives to take ownership of it, the good news turns to bad when unexpected guests pay a visit.

Enter handsome architect Mark Henderson (Dean Geyer). He don’t need no key to enter the cottage! He arrives with his own realtor (Anthony S. Goolsby) in tow, and his realtor says that he’s the rightful owner, not Ariel. What in the world is happening here? Confusion ensues, and we got ourselves a showdown. How on earth could the owner of the cottage have signed off on two separate owners? The realtors convene to try to solve the problem, but to no avail; the mysterious owner, an elderly man, says he did what he did for a reason, and the realtors aren’t too concerned—they’re both getting their commission!

So, how to solve this problem? Easy: the first person to step foot off the property loses their claim to the cottage. Which means Ariel and Mark have to shack up together for the next several days without food, supplies, spare clothes, and, in Ariel’s case, without a cellphone charging cord. And riddle me this: what happens in a holiday romantic-comedy when a handsome male architect is paired with a strong-headed, beautiful female magazine writer from the Big City? (I’m not gonna spoil it, but I’m sure you can guess.)

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We’ve seen all this before, of course, and that’s a good thing. In movies like Christmas in the Pines, we’re not expecting arthouse or experimental film to challenge our brainwaves with vague characters and hazy, indefinite situations playing out as analogy to our troubled times (and thank goodness for that!); no, we want familiar characters and familiar settings and familiar stories. We know how it’s going to end before we even start, but it’s that feel-good journey that makes us want to watch, and that’s what you get with Christmas in the Pines—schmaltzy, sappy romance with sweet, slice-of-life stakes, even if those stakes are outlandish.

And making two strangers stay in a cottage together to prove who the rightful owner is, is pretty…well, outlandish. You’d never see this scenario in real life, but in Christmas in the Pines it’s just another feature of the genre, where we simply expect that the two leads will be thrown in some sort of unlikely situation and maybe, just maybe, fall for each other. (Thankfully, these two are both nice people. And beautiful people. Otherwise, it might be a setup for a horror film.)

Far be if from Ariel and Mark to spend the next several days—including Christmas—stuck in the cottage without a little contact with the outside world (these two need to eat, after all), so the pair manages to invite their families to the cottage, where they end up (over-)staying and getting to know each other. Ariel’s sister, Jasmine, and mother, Amy, arrive with her father, Peter (Jeff Rose), allowing the Colt family to even the odds after Mark’s family—ruggedly handsome dad, Duke (Grant Goodeve), and brother Trevor (Aaron Mees)—arrives first (the Henderson boys are smitten with Ariel…but who wouldn’t be?)

Through it all, Ariel must race against the clock; she’s on a strict deadline to submit a Christmas article to her magazine editor (Joseph Curtis Callender, hilariously mean and lacking in “Christmas spirit”), which could throw a wrench into how things end at the cottage (scripter Nastasha Baron gives us enough to worry about and root for in the story, with director Gary Wheeler a sure hand in guiding us where we need to go). Will Ariel get the land, or will Mark come from behind to score ownership of the cottage? Will they find they actually like each other? Will their families drive them nuts? (Which of course would be the real-life ending to this tale, if ever there was one).

Part of the fun watching Christmas in the Pines is knowing the two leads are married in real life. Actress Jillian Murray, best known as a regular on the CBS medical series Code Black—and who I remember from the direct-to-video schlocker Wild Things: Foursome (talk about a contrast in genres!)—met Australian actor and singer Dean Geyer (known in his home country for Australian Idol and soap Neighbours; US viewers may recognize him from TV’s Glee and the short-lived Terra Nova) and began dating back in 2010 before tying the knot in 2017, four years before Christmas in the Pines‘ release. If you’re a real, true romantic, you’ll enjoy watching these two lovebirds on screen acting out a love story. If you’re not a romantic (and the Missus is just making you sit through yet another holiday rom-com), you’ll be watching to see if their on-screen chemistry matches what you’d expect from a couple with a lot of practice loving each other in real life. (I’ll let you be the judge.)

Imagicomm’s DVD looks fine, sporting “color mastered in High Definition” and English SDH closed captions. The extras include a short, behind-the-scenes featurette with members of the cast talking about their time making the film (the highlight is Murray and Henderson sharing their feelings on doing a movie together) and a collection of trailers for other Imagicomm releases.

The movie’s premise stretches reality, but families in need of a 90-minute holiday film that won’t offend Aunt Sue or Grandma Donna will be just fine watching Christmas in the Pines.

Jason Hink is a writer, editor and content producer. Sign up for his Email Newsletter here. For more of Jason’s reviews, visit here.