Holiday Watch: Snow Bride

Greta Cane is a celebrity gossip reporter with a new assignment: one of the Tannenhill boys just bought an engagement ring but no one knows for whom. She unintentionally poses as the titular Snow Bride and gets more than she expected.

Greta (Katrina Law) finds herself in a competition with fellow reporter Wesley Sharp (Tom Lenk) for a promotion at Pulse! Gossip, their gossip rag. Fearing she’ll get scooped, Greta impulsively heads to the Tannenhill’s place in Big Bear without so much as a change of clothes — well, that is unless you include her roommate’s wedding dress that’s now in the trunk of her car.

Plot events, as they must, ensue which results in Greta pretending to be the girlfriend of hunky Ben Tannenhill (Jordan Belfi) as he tries to counter the surprise of his brother Jared (Bobby Campo) arriving with his girlfriend of a couple of months Klaire Sinclaire (Susie Abromeit), Ben’s ex-girlfriend.

For the most part, you can guess the rest. This is a fairly conventional script of tentative loves, things unsaid, and jealousies that will be familiar to holiday movie fans. That said, I can’t find any fault with this movie except, perhaps, that its association with the holiday season is tenuous, but I’m allowing it because of the gingerbread + charity conceit works here. The characters feel real (I probably wouldn’t feel that way with Greta’s rival played by Tom Lenk, except I’ve seen him enough to applaud his relative restraint), the story never lags, and the ending is not rushed, prolonged, or overblown.

Snow Bride is simply a nice movie. That might be its failing for some as nothing really stands out except the craftsmanship. The antagonists are, perhaps, a little mild — which, I admit, is a pleasant change — bringing with them too little in the way of stakes. The two stars are featured throughout with only mild detours to service the rest of the cast, who aren’t slighted (kudos especially to both Patricia Richardson and Robert Curtis Brown). Even something so subtle as the celebrity kissing a gossip reporter in front of a case filled with vintage, non-paparazzi-manned cameras underscores the care that was taken in service of the story.

This isn’t a movie that sends you running to the hills screaming, “OMG, you have to see this!” But it will probably be a movie that draws you in every time it airs because every scene is done well. It’s a nice, enjoyable movie. Sometimes — especially during the holidays — that’s enough.