This Christmas, like every Christmas for the last ten years, is the Hallmark Channel’s busy season. Countless tales of the attractive small town girl or boy who meets the ruggedly attractive or gorgeously powerful out of towner who arrives in the town with plans of business but leaves with a heart full of seasonal joy and romantic love.
This year is no different–with one exception. This Christmas, we are treated to The Hallmark Channel’s first ever crossover movie. In an effort to keep husbands from fleeing to their man-caves while the little missus sits on the sofa with a White Zinfandel and a jumbo-sized box of Kleenex, the executives have greenlit and released Surface-to-Air Mistletoe. Yes, it’s the out-of-the-box script you’d expect from Hallmark but–fasten your seatbelts–it’s quite a ride!
Francesca Wellington, capably played by Jessica Lowndes, finds herself running a Holiday Boutique in the Balkans. Francesca’s bubbly charms captivate the little village of Dragalevtsy.
Francesca is content yet she carries the sadness of a marriage to a Wall Street quant (quantitative analyst) who turned out to love derivative financial instruments more than her. Beloved by the entire village including Father Dimitrov, she finds herself wrapped up in work providing ornaments for their monastery’s 50-foot-tall Christmas tree.
All is going well until rough and handsome Colonel Kostov and his communist militia arrive to “liberate” the town. Kostov takes a shine to Francesca but constantly harangues her about her “opiate of the masses” Christmas obsession. In an uncharacteristic turn of events for a Hallmark movie, Father Dimitrov is executed in the town square to the horror of the villagers.
It’s at that point Francesca realizes that despite Colonel Kostov’s deep blue eyes and square jawline, they can never be. He’s just not her type.
All hope for love or survival, but mostly love seems lost. But that night, while staring at the starry host and wishing for the perfect love that doesn’t have a taste for genocide, Francesca spies a shooting star and a single white parachute. The scene is beautiful. A shadowy silhouette cutting a massive figure descends and emerges from the meadow. Francesca is both shocked and made breathless as Captain Lars Luger-Sig-Hauser, played by Arnold Schwarzenegger (inexplicably from 1984) arrives with a mission to get the village to the chopper.
Luger-Sig-Hauser promises to rescue her and save the village from certain peril. Francesca is torn by her love for the village, its wonderful people and the boutique she made for herself. She initially agrees to leave, but in a touching scene between her and Mama Czenka, the town babushka, she decides to stay.
SPOILERS!
There’s a touching lovers-separated montage as Francesca wanders through the monastery gazing at the Christmas tree she lavishly decorated and Lars slitting Col. Kostov’s henchmen’s throats one by bloody one.
Ultimately, Francesca realizes she cannot remain in Dragalevtsy as Lars has burnt the damn place to the ground leaving only rubble and smoking corpses.
Lars and Francesca embrace as the extraction team arrives. “Come with me if you want to live,” he whispers into her ear.
This critic gives Surface-to-Air Mistletoe four stars and promises you a Christmas that you’ll both love.