No Glitter!

I loved Lindura’s performance in this movie. She plays Michaela, a very rigid hyper-organized, tightly wound control freak. She is, not surprisingly, an accountant, who is helping her brother take care of his 6-year-old son while his military wife is on deployment. Her idea of really letting loose and having fun is adding an explanation point or two to the notices she has designed for the office Christmas party she is in charge of.

When her nephew Danny’s class project is to make a scrapbook about his Christmas activities, he will need Michaela’s help and she is all in. But Danny is no dummy and knows his aunt too well. He knows that she will want him to keep things neat and organized within boxes and lines on the page. He likes his teacher’s idea that a scrapbook should be alive, colorful, and emotional rather than informational. He wants to give it to his Mom as a gift so she can feel what Christmas was like since she will not be home with him and his Dad. Trying to get into the spirit of things, Michaela watches a video about scrapbooking. Also she’s the type that wants to research and know the rules. The first thing she hears is that there is no one right way to make a scrapbook, and there are no rules. The scrapbooker shows examples of colorful, free form chaos on the pages with nary a line or a box in sight. Michaela knows she’s in trouble. Although loathe to ask for help under any circumstances, when Danny practically begs his handsome free-spirited teacher Bryan to help him and his aunt, she reluctantly agrees. Of course, as they make their way through Danny’s list of Christmas activities, Michaela and Bryan fall for each other. Needless to say, as she spends time with an unpredictable 6-year-old, and his easy-going teacher, she starts to loosen up and see the joy in being more free and easy.

Lindura manages to make a character that could have been annoying in the extreme actually sympathetic and likable. She loves Danny and never lets herself show the inner horror she feels at the notion of an unorganized scrapbook or an unplanned out day. She is always kind, patient, and cheerful. But the viewer sees behind the smiley facade. And the inner tension we can see she feels trying to keep her head from exploding is obvious and hilarious. When she watches helplessly as Danny starts slathering glue all over the scrapbook page and sprinkling pine needles all over it with abandon, her expression is priceless. “But what if we put the pine needles in an envelope and…O-o-o-kay,” she says as she weakly concedes defeat. She is learning. And it is not long before she lets her two giddy co-workers have a say in the office party organization as well.

There is not much of a plot to this one. It’s more slice of Christmas life with Michaela learning how to be more spontaneous and flexible with each Christmas activity and Bryan coming to realize that it might be time to give up his nomadic lifestyle (long story) and settle down. Although technically this checks the diversity box for Hallmark, it doesn’t really. Yes, the main characters are black, but white actors could very easily have taken their place. Actually it probably was written with white actors in mind. Or at least not written specifically for a black cast. You can always tell when a non-ethnic person is writing a role that seems ethnic on the surface. I guess some might say this interchangeability might be a good thing. But I’m not so sure.