Stubs - Snowglobe

 

Snowglobe (2007) Starring: Christina Milian, Josh Cooke, Matt Keeslar. Directed by Ron Lagomarsino. Teleplay by Garrett Frawley, Brian Turner. Produced by Jody Brockway, Craig McNeil. Color. Run time: 90 minutes. USA TV Movie, Christmas, Fantasy, Romance

While Hallmark seems to embrace Christmas harder than any other broadcaster/cable channel, they are by no means the only ones making Christmas movies. The Family channel, which has changed names several times, launched its own Christmas programming block in 1996 with “25 Days of Christmas” in 1996. During its incarnation as ABC Family, they released the TV Movie Snowglobe, starring Christina Milian, a singer turned actor.

In the film, Milian plays Angela Moreno, a single woman who works at her mother Rose’s (Lorraine Bracco) Italian deli and lives in an apartment in a building that her parents own and that her father (Ron Canada) manages. It’s a mixed-race family, part Italian and part Cuban.

She is close to her family, which is not always a good thing. Not only are her parents, her uncle Donny Moreno (Jason Schombing), her married and pregnant younger sister Gina Moreno DiBiase (Luciana Carro) and her ne'er-do-well husband James "Jamie" Marco DiBiase (Ennis Esmer) frequent uninvited guests in her apartment, but her parents keep trying to set her up with tenants. The newest, Edward "Eddie" Lee (Josh Cooke), lives only two doors down the hallway.

Angela loves Christmastime, even gift wrapping a customer’s order of lunch meat. She longs for a traditional white Christmas and her dreams appear to come true when she receives a large snow globe from a mysterious deliveryman (Andrew Krivanek). Longing to get away from her life, Angela wakes up in a village just like the one in the snow globe.

Douglas (Matt Keeslar) introduces Angela (Christina Milian)
to innkeeper Joy (Christine Willes).

Happy to be where there is snow and happy people, Angela gravitates to Douglas (Matt Keeslar), a large handsome villager who is happy to make her acquaintance. He shows her around the village and introduces her to everyone in the town, including the Inn run by Joy (Christine Willes). Angela stays for dinner and, while helping Joy in the kitchen, discovers that her oven is magical and produces whatever food is needed. Angela loves being there and is upset when she wakes up back in her bed in Brooklyn.

Reality isn’t as much fun as life inside the snow globe and Angela can’t wait to get back there. She sees Douglas ice-skating with Claire (Erin Karpluk). Claire is only too willing to have Angela use her skates, as she needs to get back to her job at the Bakery. Later, though, when she sees Angela holding on to Douglas as they skate, she becomes jealous.

When Angela asks Douglas about Claire, he tells her that she’s just a friend. Angela takes that as an opening and tells him that she thinks of him as her boyfriend.

Angela would rather be in the snow globe than in Brooklyn.

Once again, Angela wakes up back in her apartment, but she can’t wait to get back to the snow globe. She ends up missing family functions like her sister’s baby shower.

Angela has a moment with Eddie (Josh Cooke).

One time in the snow globe, Angela remembers she needs to go back to her apartment. She asks Douglas to wait and he does, of course. When Angela comes out of her bedroom, she finds that her family is in her apartment setting up dinner. Unbeknownst to her, Eddie has been invited. While she’s not happy about it, eventually, she ends up having fun with him. They are about to kiss when Douglas comes out of the bedroom and announces to everyone that he’s Angela’s boyfriend. He has apparently followed Angela to Brooklyn.

Douglas forces Angela to tell her mother (Lorraine Bracco), her father (Ron Canada)
and her sister Gina (Luciana Carro) that Douglas is her boyfriend.

Trapped in her lies, Angela agrees that he is. To get away from the prying eyes of her family, she takes Douglas for a walk through the city streets and has him try a street vendor hot dog. Finally, alone with him, she has ideas of seducing him, but Douglas has fallen asleep on her couch.

The next morning, Christmas Eve, she realizes that she can’t leave Douglas alone in her apartment while she goes to work. With nowhere else to turn, she asks Eddie to watch him. Reluctantly, he agrees to help and ends up taking Douglas to the zoo.

When Angela comes to collect Douglas at the bar Eddie is fixing up, she finds that Gina has already picked him up. Eddie stops her from leaving by trying some drinks he’s invented. They’re a mixture of eggnog and either cinnamon schnapps (the first version) or cherry brandy (the second version), as Eddie states "Perfection, Angela, comes in many flavors."

Gina announces that Claire (Erin Karpluk) has followed Douglas out of the snow globe.

The two of them end up drunk and Eddie walks her back to her apartment. They are about to kiss at the door when Gina opens the door to reveal that in addition to Douglas, Claire has also come through. While everyone is downstairs waiting for them, Angela tries to send Douglas and Claire back but ends up back in the snow globe instead. And the snow globe ends up broken when she drops it.

Eddie tries to figure out how to get Angela out of the snow globe.

Gina collects Douglas and Joy for the party, but Eddie stays back and tries to fix the snow globe.

Inside, Angela sees how boring the routine is. Every day is Christmas day and after a while the sameness gets old, even for her. She also feels trapped. Finally, Angela realizes that she wants to be back in the reality of Brooklyn. That’s when Joy and the deliveryman appear. He gives her a snow globe and, having learned her lesson, she can use it to return.

Eddie has managed to fix the snow globe and Angela uses it to return Douglas and Claire back to the lives they love, in the snow globe. Before they leave, Angela gives them each a present. For Claire it’s her clock radio, which Claire coveted, and for Douglas it’s a box of hot dogs.

A year goes by and Eddie and Angela have moved out of the apartment house and are living together. Turns out it is in the building next door and they are getting ready to attend the next Christmas dinner with her family.

Make no mistake, this is not great film. The story is pure fantasy and it’s best not to think too hard about the details, but this does make for an enjoyable distraction.

Christina Milian is good in the role. We’re not talking Shakespeare, but she seems to be the right person for the role. Pretty and bubbly, she comes across as sympathetic. The character’s situation with her family is somewhat believable. She is the black sheep in her family because she’s single and independent. Her family is a bit stereotypical despite the mixed culture’s marriage but it seems Italian trumps Cuban in this family’s culture wars.

Lorraine Bracco, perhaps best known for her run on HBO’s The Sopranos, is believable as the mother who is too involved in her daughter’s life. Her portrayal borders on stereotype but that’s actually a good thing here.

The rest of the family seems like what you’d expect to find in this sort of teleplay. The younger sister is already married and pregnant, the sister’s husband is a lazy bum, the father does as little as possible, and her uncle seems to be drafting on her mother’s success.

Matt Keeslar as Douglas in Snowglobe.

I think Matt Keeslar as Douglas and Erin Karpluk as Claire do a good job playing very naïve snow globe villagers, though Claire seems to be a little more on the ball than Douglas. She at least feels jealous whereas it’s hard to say Douglas feels anything at all. Christine Willes plays Joy, the keeper at the village inn, who, as it turns out, was in on it all along.

Josh Cooke plays Eddie, who turns out to be the love interest. He is both likeable and sympathetic. Cooke may be familiar from his many television and film roles, though he usually plays supporting roles rather than romantic leads.

When the movie was released it appears to have gotten fairly positive reviews. Perhaps not enough to generate a sequel, but the themes were heavily borrowed six years later in the direct-to-video movie A Snow Globe Christmas. Christina Milian would also appear in that film, but it is not the same and sadly very poorly written.

If you have to pick a snow globe themed Christmas movie, make it Snowglobe. But hopefully, by the time you see this film, you’ve already watched your fair share of more classical holiday films, and not just the Hallmark variety.