Holiday Watch: Fir Crazy

Elise MacReynolds is a marketing executive eagerly awaiting her promotion…not her firing. Finding herself with time on her hands, she has to go back to the family Christmas tree selling business. It’s enough to drive her Fir Crazy.

Elise (Sarah Lancaster) isn’t a fan of Christmas. Her memories from childhood are filled with visions of having to sell trees. She’s not a Scrooge about it, but lacks the joyful foundation that others bring. The person who is a Scrooge is Gary Dixon (Colin Mochrie), who recently bought the store whose sidewalk Elise’s family uses to sell trees. Dixon is very unhappy about trees blocking his display windows and generally threatening his profits. Nor is his mood helped when Elise bashes him with a tree or splats him with a slice of pizza.

That her corporate boyfriend dumped her as soon as she was fired hasn’t helped Elise’s mood. Fortunately, school teacher Darren Foster (Eric Johnson) is smitten enough to have bought three trees before managing to even talk to Elise. She soon grows to be equally as smitten.

For a time, all seems well until plot devices active. Elise’s head-hunter garners her an interview with her old firm’s competitor — but she quickly catches on that they only want insider information and Elise has too much (i.e. more than zero) integrity for that. Then, because she’s been swiping power to light the lot’s trees, Dixon gets the fire marshal to impound the trees, risking her parent’s income for the rest of the year.

Finally having enough, Elise goes to confront Dixon only to hear his story about how his heart was broken and he’s taking it out on the holidays. Being the magnanimous Cindy-Lou Who that she is, Elise is able to grow ~~Dixon’s~~ Gary’s heart a few sizes that day. As you’d expect, all turns out well, even Darren comes back (late for Christmas dinner) after his lack of faith.

Overall, this is a pleasant but average Christmas movie. A little uneven in story and character at times, but nothing fatal. Well, nothing except for Gary Dixon. His Scrooge-icity was a little difficult to take because we lacked enough context for it. If the writers had let the audience in from the start on why he was striking out, it would have added a marvelous layer to the story and made his character much more dimensional. There was a suggestion of this in the middle of the movie, but it didn’t quite do the job it needed to — also, it was a little late. Just one forty-five second scene at the beginning would have elevated this story.

Fir Crazy is a fair-to-middlin’ movie that will be fine to watch if you are already on the couch. The minor antagonists are annoyingly douchey, but are in briefly enough that it doesn’t really matter. Sarah Lancaster is pleasant as always, but none of the other cast really stands out — as a plus, neither do they drop the ball…or ornament (whatever). The ending is a good one and puts a nice stick-on bow to the proceedings.