The March Sisters at Christmas

Time for another made-for-cable Christmas movie review! I told you my family lives on them this time of the year. But this one is from Lifetime, not Hallmark.

So sit back with some hot chocolate and enjoy the SPOILERS!


If you are thinking this is some period piece, you’re wrong. The March sisters have been transported to the 21st century. Meg (Kaitlin Doubleday) is a law student, Beth (Melissa Farman) teaching piano, Amy (Molly Kunz) doing community theater and Jo (Julie Marie Berman) controls two celebrities’ twitter feeds. And they are all still living in their family home, Orchid House. But their mother wishes to sell it and get something smaller. The girls won’t stand for it. So while their mother goes to fetch their injured, war-reporter father from Afghanistan over the holidays, the girls decide to fix up the house so their mother won’t sell it.

They get help from some friends, including their next-door neighbors Teddy (Justin Bruening) and his uncle, Mr. Lawrence (John Shea). Meg’s old college boyfriend, John Brooke (Charlie Hofheimer), also arrives to help (and win her back). As they work on the house, Jo gets an offer to ghostwrite a celebrity’s autobiography. She meets Marcus Bhaer (Mark Famiglietti), the publisher. Will love also come this holiday season?

While the premise is the girls supposedly redoing the house, it seems the writers forgot this. The only March sister we see doing anything to fix the house is Amy and she usually gets yelled at for doing it. By Jo. Granted, she does nearly set the house on fire while trying to work on the wiring and is knocked out trying to move the hot water heater, but she still does more than the other three combined. Beth spends most of the movie avoiding Meg, who tries to get her to follow an inspiration board.

(Little Women fans will be glad to know Beth makes it to the end of the movie)

Do these March sisters reflect their literary counterparts? Kinda. The writers seem to have mistaken Beth’s “sweetness” for “timidity.” She does go off on Meg and even I was like “Whoa, Beth!” And Jo seems bitchier than usual, both to Amy and Laurie. I’m not sure if this is Berman’s fault or the writers. I am leaning toward the writers. As I said, Berman is a soap actress and they make bitchery an art form. She does try to imbue Jo with charm and to redeem the character. And Amy’s desire for better things has been turned into her being a wild child. Meg really has no personality outside of “Law student dating a douche” and “Beth’s overbearing cheerleader.”

And it seems they forgot about the Jo/Beth relationship ENTIRELY. Jo is closer to Meg than any of the other sisters.

Many, many people are still upset to this day Laurie never got Jo. The writers, thankfully, do not try to “rectify” this and respect Ms. Alcott’s original vision. But damn if Bruening and Berman don’t have good chemistry. Then again, Bruening has good chemistry with pretty much everyone in the movie. So you do want to root for Jo and Teddy to get together…but you also are fine with him ending up with Amy one day. As for Berman’s chemistry with Famiglietti, it’s decent. Enough to keep the purists happy at least.

But there was still something charming about these four girls and their lives as sisters. I just wish working on the house brought them together or for the writers to have just done a straight-up romance. Just introduce the fact their parents weren’t going to be home for the holidays so they have to band together to make it bright for themselves.

I’m not sure if I’ll be giving it a second view. Or if I do, just to stare at Bruening. I need to get him back on my TV screen. General Hospital has a few women who need some romancing. He doesn’t have to pop back up as Jamie Martin, he can be a new character. I don’t care! Just come back.