When workaholic career woman Haley Hollis returns to the family ranch for the holidays, she has no plans to stay any longer than familial duty requires. As far as she is concerned, the ranch, with all its outdoorsy workings and twee Christmas hay rides, is very much in her past. And perhaps, if she were being truly honest with herself, she resents (and feels a bit inadequate about) the way her brother and grandmother rave about superwoman ranch hand Kate.
Haley's plans for a quick escape are thwarted when she realises the financial difficulties the ranch is experiencing. Like Emma from Vida, Haley's ultimately unable to stand by and watch her family's business get gobbled up by greedy neighbours. Also like Emma from Vida, Haley prefers romantic companions of the female persuasion.
Gee, I wonder who Haley will unexpectedly realise is the love of her life?
Alas, whereas Emma from Vida was a dynamic, take charge firebrand of a woman who could believably wrestle an ailing business back to profitability in spite of suspicious locals and often thoughtless sister, Haley displays no such verve here. Her competence is all told and not shown. In fact, what we are shown often runs directly counter to what we are told. The dialogue, for instance, insists that Haley was a capable ranch hand in her youth. Yet there's a scene where she can't even get on a horse by herself. Said scene exists purely for Kate to be there to try and help her and for them to argue about that, of course.
Arguing is in fact the main thing that Haley and Kate will do for most of this film. And sure, enemies to lovers is a popular trope in romantic comedies, and it's true that the only time the pair really show much spark together is in their squabbles ... but the spats never really go anywhere or lead to anything. If you're going with enemies to lovers, then use the heat of the arguments to build up the heat of the relationship, people.
To be frank, though, Christmas at the Ranch is not a film where the word 'heat' has any presence. It is as safely chaste and sweet a romance as any you'd get on the Hallmark Channel, it just happens to be two ladies performing the awkwardly close-lipped "romantic" kisses, this time.
In fact, their whole relationship - which is, let's face it, the entire point of the film - is lacking in any kind of verve. I will acknowledge that the movie does establish Haley and Kate's mutual attraction OK, before they realise who each other are, but after that pretty quickly flames out, the script makes only the most rudimentary efforts to establish a connection between them before they declare their undying love.
The conviction of the relationship is not helped by the film's acting, much of which is pretty flat and wooden. Given that the main cast members all have pretty solid TV careers, my inclination is that the problem lay behind the scenes: quite probably, this was a production where meeting deadlines and budgets were the only real criteria of success, and whether the final product was actually any good was not a significant concern.
I've worked on some projects like that, in my time.
The most enjoyable performances in the film actually come in the form of a couple of secondary characters - Masonry the New Age Woo-Woo woman, and Lucy the hotel receptionist - that seemed to have the potential to be fun and were honestly more engaging and memorable than the stressy workaholic and stoic cowgirl leads.
I also wonder if the script went through lots of last minute changes and re-writes, resulting in parts of an earlier draft getting left in. The movie goes to some lengths to establish that Haley owns a dog and it is important to her ... and then it is left behind when she goes to the ranch and not mentioned again. Last minute re-writes might also explain the dialogue saying Haley was good at ranching, when she can't even get on a horse.
Ultimately, this wannabe heart-warming romance is likely to leave you cold.
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