The 12 Dates of Christmas - Holiday Movie Musings

I was prepared to be so-so on this one. The 12 Dates of Christmas (2011), starring Amy Smart and Mark-Paul Gosselaar (Zack!), is a show is about a young woman being set up on a blind date for Christmas Eve (who does this?!). The twist? It’s really Groundhog Day! That is, she is perpetually stuck re-living the same Christmas Eve, from afternoon through evening. Then at midnight she is reset back to the afternoon, while being the only person retaining memories from the previous days’ adventures.

While the concept is very Done, the execution is really cute. Amy Smart is a low-key fave of mine, and she plays a character on a challenging journey who really uses it to learn, grow, and enjoy life rather than a darker Sisyphus-ian turn it could have taken. She’s plucky without being annoyingly so. And Mark-Paul as the usual “too handsome to be a regular guy, too regular-guy to be an annoying supermodel-type” is charming and believable, while leaving space for Amy’s character to move through her stages of growth—the recognizable cycle of denial, negotiation, anger, and acceptance.

We know the girl is going to get the guy. The photo on the cover of the box is the punchline writ large in these holiday romance movies (not that we even need that to know how the hero’s journey will end). But the path to that is filled with cute side characters she meets and befriends—and learns from—along the way. The ending may be a little predictable and bordering cheesy, but we wouldn’t love these movies if they weren’t. 

Definitely recommend.

ABC Family/Disney+