Every year, there are movies that become instant personal favorites, and you know you’ll rewatch them every year. Then there are movies that you enjoyed watching once, but you probably won’t think about the again. Lifetime’s Serving Up the Holidays, part of It’s a Wonderful Lifetime, is in the latter category.
To be fair, it’s a perfectly fine movie about Scarlett (Britt Irvin), a chef and co-owner of an upscale restaurant. When her restaurant is on the verge of losing its biggest investor if she doesn’t come up with a new menu, her best friend and co-owner signs her up in a holiday themed cooking class taught by her former culinary rival, James (Zach Roerig), to help her find her inspiration.
“Protagonist needs to reconnect with her Christmas spirit” is a pretty common staple for these movies. Serving Up the Holidays also revolves around food, which just adds an added dash of appeal. Who doesn’t love food around the holiday season? There’s a reason so many Christmas movies incorporate food (like Lifetime’s other movie, Baking All the Way).
But watching the cooking class in Serving Up the Holidays made me really want to sign up for a similar experience. I wouldn’t mind learning the perfect gingerbread recipe! And the movie also did a good job of making each of the supporting characters distinct and sympathetic. Jackie’s (Tanja Dixon-Warren) story in particular was touching and bittersweet.
Strangely enough, the romance between Scarlett and James actually works. I say “strangely enough” because the way Scarlett initially describes James isn’t supported by what we see on-screen. She paints a picture of him as arrogant and childish. However, even to that point, those aren’t the words I would use to describe him. (Okay, maybe his teasing with the spice song could be described as a little childish.) If anything, he seems laid back. There’s even something about his voice that just sounds…chill. If Lifetime is ever looking to cast a surfer boy, Roerig would fit the part.
That said, while there’s a disconnect in how Scarlett describes James and in how he actually comes off, it makes a certain amount of sense. If only because, by comparison, Scarlett is so high-strung, a violin would tell her to relax a little. This is truly a relationship of opposites, but they play off each other well. You can see how he’d help her relax a little bit without getting too flustered himself, and she’d help him find his drive and purpose.
Serving Up the Holidays is a cute – if not terribly memorable – movie. It’s the perfect kind of movie to play in the background while you’re baking Christmas cookies. While pretending to be a professional chef? I’ll leave that up to you.
Agree? Disagree? What did you think of Serving Up the Holidays? Share with us in the comments below!
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