Emma is a copywriter at an LA-based ad agency with a massive, sun-drenched LA apartment, and clients who sing her praises, but all work and no play makes Emma a dull girl.
This is … No Time Like Christmas on Lifetime.
Perhaps a new assignment will brighten her up. The CEO of Frost Watches wants to launch a “secret holiday series” watch on Christmas Eve, and Emma has two weeks to create a headline-grabbing marketing campaign to go along with it. In the real world, planning for this type of launch would have started a year ago, and the watch would be out in mid-October, but the real world need not apply in the world of Christmas movies.
Emma wanders into an antique store in search of inspiration for the watch campaign, where she stumbles upon an engraved pocket watch she gave to her ex-boyfriend, Fletcher. Ouch. Jerry Gergich from Parks & Rec walks up and tells Emma that a young man with “sadness in his eyes” sold him that watch, and he’d like her to have this cursed item for free.
On the phone later, Emma’s sister Bronwyn really knocks us all over the head with the foreshadowing, arguing that Emma finding the watch “seems like fate to me” and a sign that the “two of you are supposed to re-connect.”
Despite being in charge of a major campaign that needs to launch in two weeks, Emma is allowed to work independently on the Frost Watches campaign from Vermont, where she’ll be staying with her sister, brother-in-law, and their two kids. Or so she thinks. Literally the second Emma walks in the door, Bronwyn shuttles her off to a nearby bed and breakfast so Emma can get some work done without being disturbed by her nieces.
Emma thinks it’s a little weird, but is charmed by the B&B owner (and small town mayor) Thomas, who remembers that Emma was something of a piano protege as a child.
Emma goes in search of more inspiration by wandering amongst the townsfolk. She’s approached by a precocious tween (“I want to be a famous producer, whatever that means!”), who hands Emma a flyer for a Christmas Eve play being directed by her father.
And who is her father, you might ask? Pocket watch Fletcher, of course.
Fletch walks up as Emma is putting two and two together, and they greet each other awkwardly. Though Mayor Thomas told Emma this would be the last year of the town’s fabled Christmas extravaganza due to dwindling funds, Fletch reveals that he and his kid — Lola — are being comped a room at the B&B so they can be close to rehearsals.
He’s apparently a celebrated, London-based playwright, but when Vermont community theater calls, you answer, right?
Emma is allowed to grace her sister’s home with her presence, where Bronwyn reveals to Emma and her parents that she’s a cyber-stalking MVP. She created a fake Instagram, followed Fletch’s private account, peeped that he was staying at the B&B, and made a last-min rez for her sister so the two would meet.
“I didn’t see any rings in the post!” she tells Emma. Bronwyn also didn’t see any snaps of Lola. “Maybe he’s one of those protective parents,” she says in a moment that should’ve been delivered while staring directly into the camera.
“We’re hopeless romantics; sue us!” Bronwyn says. And they laugh and laugh.
The next morning, Emma is just trying to get some coffee in peace when Lola and Mayor Thomas attack, and demand that she sit and have breakfast with the ex-boyfriend she broke up with a decade ago and the child he had with someone unknown woman. Yay?
Lola cannot yet pick up on social cues; she tells Emma she and her dad are going to check out the theater where the Christmas play is being held, and demands that Emma come along.
“You’re welcome to join,” Fletch responds with absolutely no enthusiasm.
Though Emma has a perfectly acceptable reason to ditch these two, she agrees to go. Lola runs ahead doing children things and Fletcher, dressed like an extra from Newsies, tells Emma he hasn’t written much in the last three years. “There’s a reason I’m doing the Christmas Carol, not an original,” he says. Emma tells Fletch about her job; “That’s the same place you got a scholarship right out of school, right?” he says. A scholarship for a job?
They arrive at what is a pretty big theater for small-town Vermont. Guess who’s there? Jerry Gergich! But Emma apparently has face blindness. “Do I know you?” she asks Jerry, who introduces himself as Noel (*wink wink*).
Lola is surprised to learn of Emma’s musical chops, and suggests that Emma write original music for the Christmas play. You know, in addition to a career-making pitch she has to accomplish in (*checks calendar*) two weeks. This should really be an after-school special for women who need to learn how to say no.
She does demur at least, but Jerry/Noel gives her a key to the theater in case Emma wants to drop by and tickle the ivories.
Back at the B&B, Emma runs into Fletch’s mom, Catherine, with whom she had a great relationship. They say words to each other, but this is really a way to set up a meet-cute with Mayor Thomas and Catherine. Honestly, I would 100% rather this movie be Silver Bells, a tale of love between a handsome innkeeper and an elegant empty nester.
But alas, we must endure Emma and Fletch, who have zero chemistry.
When Catherine asks Emma about her love life, Emma says she broke up with someone a year ago because “he wanted to get married.” Fletch perks up and shows more emotion than we’ve seen from him this entire time. “But you were already married to your job!” he zings with a smile and exits stage left.
Emma heads to the theater, sits at the piano, and sings … terribly
For real, I thought perhaps her terrible singing was going to be a plot point. (“Amazing composer, terrible voice, that’s our Emma!”) But no, Fletch creeps up behind her in new hipster garb and says “It’s beautiful; you sing just as well as you did in college.”
Fletch sits next to Emma, who gets to deliver a series of really bizarre lines, including:
- “It’s funny how time flies by and things stay the same, as if they were immortal.” (??)
- “Well, one of my favorite movies is Gone With the Wind, so I enjoy a long story.”
I should point out that Emma is a black woman, and her favorite movie is GWTW? Dafuq?
Anywho, this is where Fletch reveals that Lola’s mom died in a car accident at a time when Fletch was focused solely on his work. So he is three years deep into that guilt.
He shares that a wise old man (who “looks a lot like Noel” — hmm, what are the chances?) told him on the London tube that “time is the most important gift that we have.”
Emma decides to tell him that she found the watch in that antique store. Fletch says he was in LA for a meeting “and thought it would be good to let go of the past.” Sure, Jan.
Emma says her finding that watch is “like something out of a fairy tale,” which sparks something in Fletch. THAT’S IT! His big idea for an original work = a show about a magical watch that brings everybody together for Christmas to remind us that time is all we have.
The show is amazing, everyone falls in love, and Christmas is saved! Roll credits. Just kidding, there is still MORE THAN AN HOUR to go in this movie.
Emma procrastinates on her real job by designing a flyer for Fletch’s Christmas play, even though her sister had mentioned earlier that the play had been advertised to death for weeks. Emma goes to show her handiwork to Fletch, but finds Lola instead, who suggests they spend money they don’t have by printing out Emma’s version of the flyer and pasting them all around town. This is really just an opportunity for Emma and Lola to bond, and have one of them utter the phrase “We can meet several angels a day and never know it.”
Fletch arrives and asks Emma to help him with auditions, at which point it dawns on me that they … don’t have a cast less than two weeks before the show?
Meanwhile, Emma’s boss asks for an update, and Emma writes to the watch exec that she’s working hard and will have an update “in the next few days,” which is totally how these things work. In reality, she’s too busy editing Fletch’s magical watch musical to do real work.
We can fast forward through a couple plot points
- They cast the show; an unremarkable blonde named Sarah lands the lead role, but at least she can hold a tune.
- The “jazz” version of Joy to the World that Fletch planned to use, however, is hot garbage, so Emma agrees to write an original song to replace it.
- It turns out that Emma accidentally emailed edits to Fletch’s magical watch play + the redesigned flier to the watch exec, not Fletch.
- Naturally, watch exec loves it and they agree to live-stream Fletch’s play as part of the Christmas Eve launch. Exec dude will be there in person, assuming Winter Storm Megan doesn’t get in the way (FORESHADOW GONG!)
- Emma tells Fletch but he’s pissed that she is “using him” to get ahead at work. Womp womp.
- Emma realizes she loves Fletch and goes to tell him, but overhears blondie lead girl Sarah and Fletch professing their love to each other through a closed door.
- Emma mopes around play practice and she and Fletch have some super-boring conversations about healthy relationships and communication, and oh my god these two are a terrible match.
- Apparently Emma broke up with Fletch in college because she didn’t want him to pass up a job in London and follow her to LA. Because why would you move to LA if you had dreams of show biz, amirite?!
- Emma tells Mayor Thomas that Sarah and Fletch are in love, but B&B bae says Sarah has a serious boyfriend in New Haven (oddly specific). Emma picks up a script that just happens to be at arm’s length and realizes Fletch and Sarah were just running lines, not professing their love. Duh.
Apparently that watch exec dude is the only person who checks the weather because everyone is caught off guard when Winter Storm Megan dumps a bunch of snow on Christmas town. Sarah and that boyfriend are trapped in New Haven, so the show is without it stars.
But obviously, the stars were in front of us all along, blah blah.
Emma shows up at the last minute dressed to the nines and ready for her close-up. We don’t get an explanation for how she knew Sarah was out and she was in, but if this were a real Lifetime movie, Sarah’s body would be in a trunk somewhere so Emma could have her moment to shine.
But this is Christmas, so no murders here. Even the watch exec made it! He has better snow tires than Sarah, I guess …
Everyone loves the show, but it appears to only consist of one song (Emma has mercifully been auto-tuned) with Fletch at the piano. He then breaks character to profess his love to Emma and … end scene?
The watch exec is so impressed that he decides to save Christmas and sponsor the town’s Christmas festivities for the years to come. He also offers Emma a promotion and the chance to work in New York. Oh noes! What about Fletch?
No worries! Some Broadway producer was watching the live stream and wants to turn that one song into a “two-hour Broadway show!” Again, because that’s how these things happen. I’m sure The Magic Watch will sweep the Tony’s next year.
Oh yeah, and Jerry Gergich is probably an angel or something.
