On Christmas day, I felt the need to watch the most conventional, Hallmark-style Christmas movie I could possibly find. And that’s why I turned on Reporting for Christmas, a film as uninventive as its title. Mary Romero is a serious, big city gal/hardworking reporter. So when she’s assigned a “puff piece,” looking at the history of a Christmas toy manufacturer in a small town, she’s less than thrilled.

Silver fox toymaker Blake Johnson is equally unexcited about the prospect of featuring his toys on the news. After all, the big evil news company is likely to spin the story in a way that exploits their small town and the very serious toy making business they have going. But what happens when they meet and… fall in love (I guess)? Will Christmas sparks fly or will this movie continue to be boring AF?

Let’s score this bad boy and find out.

Romance: 7/10. Well, the romance in this story is undeniable. This is the classic holiday romance story. Big city gal comes to a small town and learns how to slow down and value a different kind of lifestyle. In the end, she gives up her dreams of being a big city hardworking business lady girl and moves to a small town where she can “really make a difference.” This is paint-by-numbers Christmas romance, I have to give it high points for doing the one thing Christmas rom coms are supposed to do. But I have to give the romance a C- for general lack of creativity and true chemistry. Who are these people outside of their feelings about Christmas and the commercialization of the holiday? No idea.

The movie tries to make the romance interesting by throwing in a love triangle of sorts. Blake’s childhood friend Lexi does PR for the toy company and is annoyingly around all the time to make sure Mary doesn’t fuck up the story (spoiler: Mary fucks up the story anyway). But the most annoying thing about Lexi is that she’s cute and clearly has feelings for Blake. This doesn’t really go anywhere, though, because it never, ever appears as if Blake is interested in her. In all fairness, Blake never seems interested in anything. I think this guy just sucks at acting.

Morality: 7/10. Similarly, the moral center of this story is also extremely basic. Christmas has been ruined by capitalism. And all news companies care about are sensationalized stories. After Mary gets to know Blake and his toy company, she wants to tell a story about the town and how much this company means to the community. But the news company she works for thinks this isn’t want viewers will want to see. So they spin her story into something super weird that makes Blake look like a money-hungry Christmas mistletoad-pushing toy billionaire. The complete opposite of who he really is.

How does Mary make it right? She drives back to his tiny town and shows Blake the REAL version of the story she’d wanted to share with the world. And she quits her job to stay with him in Tiny Town, USA, and idk… make toys? Unclear.

Music: 0/10. Was there music in this movie? No idea.

Christmas Spirit: 10/10. This movie leans really, really heavily into Christmas spirit, probably because it lacks nearly everything else that makes a movie a movie. Plot? Meh, whatever. Character development? Who has time for that? Good acting? What’s wrong with cue cards?

Instead, what this movie really cares about is all the Christmas fixings. Toads dressed up in Christmas garb. Christmas trees. Lights. Snow. Most importantly, this movie included the most DELICIOUS-looking peppermint mochas. I’m not a peppermint mocha person at all, but I went out and ordered a peppermint mocha after watching this movie because they just looked so cozy and appealing. 10/10 for the peppermint mochas alone.

Warmth: 0/10. To find the heart of the movie, Christmas rom coms often rely on pets or children. Reporting for Christmas contained neither, which felt especially weird for a movie about a TOY COMPANY. Where are the kids enjoying these toys? Does anyone even like mistletoads? What is going on here?

Aside from the lack of animals or children, Reporting for Christmas lacked any sort of originality or innovation that would suggest the creators of this movie cared at all for the story or the message they’re trying to get across here. This is a movie that was simply made for the sake of making another Christmas rom com. There is nothing colder than a paint-by-numbers Christmas movie that refuses to color outside of the lines.

SO HOW DID IT GO?

24/40 = 48/F. Yeah. This movie sucked. But it’s exactly what I asked for, so I can only hate myself for watching this. If you want to hate yourself too, Reporting for Christmas is streaming on Hulu.