When I feel tired and wish to relax with a movie, I usually opt for the genre of comedy, but when even that won’t work, I watch a Christmas movie. With the holiday-themed Hollywood movies, including the classic It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) there are no surprises, they follow a standard template, so you can be at ease without the need to focus on the story or expect any twists. Today was one of those bad days, and I found The Holiday Calendar (2018) on Netflix. A cheerful movie, with a simple plot that was passable, gets a Raw from Mangoidiots.
Abby Sutton (Kat Graham) is the second daughter of a caring mixed-race family. She is a lovely and friendly person yet she is unable to find a life partner or land the job of her dreams. Her close friend is Josh Barton (Quincy Brown), a fellow photographer who travels around the world. During the Christmas season, Abby’s grandfather presents her with an Advent Calendar (used to count the days of Advent in anticipation of Christmas). To her complete disbelief, the calendar predicts her future – every day at the stroke of midnight, it displays a doll that symbolises the theme of how her day will turn out to be. The story is about how Abby finds her true love.
The lead pair Kat Graham and Quincy Brown have done their roles well, they exhibit their friendship in a way that was natural and enjoyable. As the grandpa, Ron Cephas Jones impresses us with his effortless acting. Other characters were forgettable. For a film titled The Holiday Calendar, I thought the Advent Calendar and the future prediction will play a vital role in the story, but it was just a backdrop – there were no surprises or twists. Last year, I had seen Kat Graham’s 2020 movie, Operation Christmas Drop, which was also Christmas themed and was better than this one.
Kat Graham and Quincy Brown – The Holiday Calendar
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