This Time Each Year
Writer: Juliana Wimbles
Director: Yan-Kay Crystal Lowe
Cast: Alison Sweeney, Niall Matter, Ezra Wilson, Laura Soltis, Victor Zinck Jr.
Alison Sweeney (A Magical Christmas Village) plays Lauren, a business manager who's struggling to get through the first holiday season after becoming separated from her husband. Niall Matter (Holiday Hotline) plays her estranged husband Kevin, a recovering alcoholic who's trying to find a direction after losing his driver's license and his job tending bar. Lauren and Kevin still have unfinished business: they bought their dream home, which Lauren proceeded to sink a lot of money into—only for them to find out that the place was a money pit. And then there's their son Charlie (Ezra Wilson), who's refusing to take off a Santa costume until the big day for reasons he will not divulge.
If that all sounds heavy, that's because it very much is. And not even the lighthearted antics of Kevin's brother Bart (Victor Zinck Jr.) nor Bart's flirtation with neighbor Kimmy (Luisa d'Oliveira) can make This Time Each Year seem bright. Making matters more fraught is Lauren's mom Janet (Laura Soltis), whose sudden arrival forces Lauren and Kevin to pretend like everything is just fine. It is, however, very much not fine.
Home For the Holidays: The McCaul family takes Christmas very seriously, as every Hallmark family should. Lauren and Kevin have annual Christmas cards, a stack of which tell their love story during the opening credits; 2023's is... less than merry. The couple also have an annual Christmas date, a tradition that remains TBD all things considering. There's also an annual gingerbread house decorating contest, because the Hallmark Channel bears the responsibility of keeping the gingerbread industry afloat.
'Twas the Night Before This Movie: You know this isn't going to be a normal Hallmark movie when, just three minutes in, a character asks another, "You're still on the wagon, right?" Then, literally 70 seconds later, Kevin is unemployed and starring into a tumbler of whiskey. Damn.
They Brought Presence: Laura Soltis and Colleen Wheeler are great as Lauren and Kevin's moms, respectively. And by "great" I mean that they deliver some of the most withering remarks—intentional and not—to Lauren, specifically, that I ever heard during Countdown to Christmas. Real yikes-face-inducing stuff.
Ho Ho Ho: When Lauren asks Kevin to go along with her plan to hide the truth from her mother, she says to him, "I want you to stop lying to me. Lying for me is totally different." That's about as funny as it gets!
As Advertised: This Time Each Year is the platonic ideal of a generic Hallmark movie title. The vibes of this movie are way more It's a Wonderful Life than, say, Christmas in Connecticut, so I just kept thinking of Phoebe from Friends saying "It should've been called It's a Sucky Life and Just When You Think It Can't Suck Anymore It Does."
There is absolutely a place in the Hallmark movie lineup for dramas, and you can get why actors like Sweeney and Matter would want to try something like this instead of the standard romantic comedy fare that they make over and over again. And to their credit—and to the credit of everyone involved!—they pull it off. This Time Each Year gets really real. I'm talking marriage counseling, I'm talking real estate crisis, I'm talking revoked driver's licenses, I'm talking parenting choices wreaking havoc on a child's self-esteem and coping mechanisms—that's how real it gets. And every time you presume that the movie is going to let up and give us some Hallmark levity—nope! No one lets anyone else off the hook for anything.
That dramatic intensity results in the film operating in two very different modes. On the one hand, it makes the relationship between Lauren and Kevin feel emotionally true—which only enhances the moments where they reconnect romantically. There's a scene between the two in their dream-turned-nightmare house that's about as romantic as it gets. But on the other, the slightest little thing sets characters off—just like in real life. There's a super tense fight about ice skates in this movie that, even after watching twice, I still don't understand. But it came out of nowhere, made me confused and uncomfortable, and it's hard for any Christmas crafting montage set to a faux Motown, rights-free holiday tune to pull me back into the holiday mood.
