“Missghetti means you haven’t made it in a long time… . and I miss it! Get it? Missghetti?”

Justin’s rating: Rudy the red-nose dog-deer

Justin’s review: When you seriously consider the sheer amount of Christmas movies that are pumped out every year by the Hollyjollywood industrial complex, you have to acknowledge that there’s no aspect to this holiday that filmmakers can afford to overlook. So it was inevitable that someone would make a movie based on the goofy letters that kids write to Santa — and somehow turn that into a steamy pile of adult romcom nonsense.

Matt (AJ Buckley shortly before starring in CSI NY) is a cynical mailman with an overbearing boss (Lochlyn Munro, Totally Killer) and a precocious little orphaned niece. He’s not the biggest fan of Christmas, but a temporary worker at the office might change his mind. This is Kristi North (Ashley Scott, TV’s Jericho), a giddy heap of woman who responds to kids’ letters to Santa and is certainly not related to Saint Nick herself. No way. Not with that name. Not in the slightest.

Tasked with spying on Kristi for his weirdly paranoid boss, Matt finds his mopey outlook challenged by a full blast of candy cane attitude. In turn, Matt might be helping Kristi get over being homesick due to her extended absence from the North Pole. Or wherever she might be from. She’s so suspiciously vague on this they might as well have Santa show up every 10 minutes to point at her and roar, “THAT’S MAH GIRL!”

Meanwhile, Matt’s niece Emily keeps trying to play matchmaker, writing to Santa on his behalf, roping him into a nosy single parent group, and setting him up with a geriatric neighbor. Truly, if you’ve never sat through a movie scene where a guy is pressured by an eight-year-old to romance a woman 40 years his senior, you’ve never lived.  So between that, his boss hounding him, and his desire to get back in his old rock band, this is one mailman who might just go… postal. Or, more likely, slide into ever-greater depression.

I had heard that Christmas Mail was a truly laughable yuletide romcom, but after seeing it, I can tell you that it’s not really guilty of anything more than a standard meet-cute with some quirky elements. More than anything else, this feels like a movie where the plot had some extra pages that were removed along the way, leaving important backstory and context on the cutting room floor.

For example, midway through the movie Matt is shown pining for his rock band and calls its leader Heather for some help with talking to his niece. He shows hints of familiarity with her, and she calls him “Sweetie” and seems like his reliable go-to as she agrees to drop everything over the holidays to fly out to be with them both. She acts so familiar with Matt that Kristi thinks they’re married. Yet we in the audience are stymied too. Are they exes? Brother and sister? A former nanny? A lesbian gal pal and her literal beard? This film isn’t saying outright, so draw your own conclusions.

There’s also the situation of Sally, the only black lady at USPS who wears a sixteen-foot green tie and talks the way writers who have never actually met a black person thinks that African Americans talk. She’s ducky.

What’s odder still is Christmas Mail’s treatment of Kristi North. She is, to drop a devastating spoiler on you, Santa’s daughter. This causes her to be partially ignorant of life in the real world while hewing to the peculiarities of the North Pole — kind of like Elf — while also wielding some light superpowers like calling down birds on command, changing her whole outfit in two seconds, and picking up languages in mere weeks. But she’s not full-on Buddy weird, so it’s really hard to get a fix on her. Since she’s 50% of the romantic combo, I’d say it’s pretty important to be able to understand her character and motivations.

The acting is cheesy — as is expected from this genre — but it’s not deal-breaking bad. It’s schmaltzy Christmas cuteness with a post office theme. The music is pretty peppy and reinforces this flick’s light-hearted tone. And the Christmas glee is shoved down the viewer’s eyeballs, with everyone wearing heavy coats in the warm California sun and conducting CGI sprinkle fights. Oh, and the whole climactic chase involves a mail truck following Christmas lights as they come on. It’s really dorky, truly dorky, and the more you lean into that, the more it’s a fun watch.

So I can’t hate on or even mock Christmas Mail — that much. It’s the kind of movie that you really want to drop on someone to see them go through a rapid journey of emotions, from disbelief to humor to horror to cringe to holly jolly merriment.

Intermission!

• “Timmy House” is not a good mailing address
• I could watch mail be sorted all day long
• Old fashioned suitcases make great impromptu stools
• “No letters for Santa?” “Of course not, we tweeted ours.” “Tweet tweet.”
• “Why does Santa need to write back?” “Why do people dress up their pets?”
• She only works two months a year? Best job ever.
• Emily wants a girlfriend for her uncle who will “kiss him and stuff”
• “Misspeghetti” is the dumbest term ever, kid
• What if Santa hats get caught in the sorting machine? It’ll be a BLOODBATH, I tells ya!
• “I’m grooming you, man. You’re being groomed.”
• Assistant managers get clip-on ties
• She writes letters with a pen that’s got a feather on it, cute
• This kid is going to blow herself up in the kitchen
• Did Emily just set her uncle up on a date with a 70-year-old lady?
• “When will it end!” “…Christmas?”
• MP3 players are too advanced tech for Santa these days
• “Everyone forgets about Rudolph… that’s why he’s got a complex.”
• “SANTA DOESN’T CARE JILL, SANTA DOESN’T CARE!”
• “You don’t have to yell!” “Oh yes I do.” OK I laughed at that.
• Rudy the dog is certainly not Rudolph in disguise
• I love Emily pressuring Matt to tell him where her parents went after they died
• If a boy kisses a notebook maybe he really likes zebras
• For a guy who doesn’t like Christmas that much, Matt’s house is quite festive
• “Breathe out the hate… and in the hope!”
• Worst voicemail message ever
• There’s nothing creepy about wearing a recording device on a date to spy on her for your boss!
• The post office doesn’t allow inter-office dating? OK. Sure. I believe that.
• Chopsticks are good for writer’s cramp
• “I love kids… and animals… and CANDY!”
• Bathroom makeover!
• The adults watching a 15-year-old boy play on a playground
• Kristi can call down birds on command
• That’s the quietest “wait” I’ve ever heard
• “You’re the crazy bird lady!”
• She changed her clothes in two seconds. I like Matt’s reaction to that.
• COOKIE MONTAGE
• SPRINKLE FIGHT
• Kristi’s apartment door is covered in wrapping paper
• Everyone eating dinner in the little girl’s room on her tiny table
• The rock-Hawaiian-Christmas song. There’s no way that Matt is actually playing all those notes.
• The moment when your evil boss comes up behind you with a tape recorder blasting your declaration of not-love, just to be a tool
• Sally’s super-long green tie
• Yeah, let’s just take a kid on a rock and roll tour. Pull her out of school and everything. That’s good for development!
• USPS can put out wanted ads for missing people
• “Follow Rudolph!”
• The photoshopped postcards over the end credits