Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Mystic Christmas’ on Hallmark, Which Is Somehow Not A Sequel To ‘Mystic Pizza’

Hallmark’s late October holiday surge continues with Mystic Christmas, an Xmas romcom that is nominally an ode to the 1988 indie romance Mystic Pizza. You know, the movie that Julia Roberts starred in before she was Julia Roberts? While 25 years separate Pizza from Christmas, the perfect number of years for an anniversary sequel, Mystic Christmas is very much its own pie — albeit with a few familiar toppings (a different pizza place and William R. Moses, in a different role). Since Mystic Christmas isn’t a sequel or even set in the same cinematic universe as Mystic Pizza, does it at least work as a Hallmark holiday movie?

MYSTIC CHRISTMAS: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Jessy Schram (Chicago Med) plays Juniper Jones, a marine biologist by trade and world traveler by choice. She never spends the holidays in the same place twice, instead preferring to see the world while everyone else is keeping things familiar. All that changes when her college roommate and best friend Candace (In Merry Measure’s Patti Murin) requests her help with a newly-rescued seal (Peppermint, in a breakout role). Juniper will do anything for a seal in need — but will she risk running into Candace’s brother Sawyer (A Tale of Two Christmases’ Chandler Massey)? Juniper and Sawyer had an epically romantic fling at Candace’s wedding but haven’t spoken in 10 years. Why? Sawyer never emailed Juniper back. Bad etiquette, dude!

Juniper decides that all the awkwardness is worth it and decides to spend this Christmas in Mystic, Connecticut — and in addition to looking after Peppermint, Candace also tasks (saddles?) Juniper with three overeager interns. Juniper is here for the seal! She is not ready to boss other humans around, Candace! It also proves impossible for Juniper to avoid Sawyer, the self-appointed unofficial task rabbit of Mystic. He can’t help himself from helping people out — and he has a pizza place to run, too!

Juniper keeps running into Sawyer, and she also can’t escape all of the traditions that Mystic upholds every holiday season. This Christmas is turning out to be the exact opposite of the past decade’s worth of holidays — but is Juniper learning to like this change of pace? And is she feeling the same feels for Sawyer that she felt all those years ago? And if so… what’s his excuse for never emailing her back?!

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Mystic Christmas has the feel of a coastal Christmas movie, like 2021’s Christmas Sail, but it honestly has the pacing and joke density of a show like 30 Rock. Screenwriter Nicole Drespel has crafted a script that’s jam-packed with wit, running jokes, and turns of phrase that will make you laugh, smile, or at the very least hold your attention. Full disclosure: I have actually been friends with Drespel for over a decade.

Performance Worth Watching: Jessy Schram really puts in the hard work as Juniper Jones, and the payoff is big. It’s true that one of Hallmark’s stock female leads is the quirky, Type A professional — and that definitely describes Juniper. But Schram manages to play an adorkable lead that — and I mean this in the best way — feels like a dork. She is very much a scientist, was very much an extra credit student, every bit the member of a book club who wants to talk about the book, and there’s a lot of show not tell going on here. Like, I love that when Mystic locals tell her that “Venice isn’t going anywhere,” she can’t help but point out that Venice is actually sinking. Those moments paired with Schram’s awkward, endearing physicality make Juniper a lead like few we’ve seen on Hallmark.

Memorable Dialogue: Presented without context: “I’ve been inbox: zero since 8th grade.” “That is its… dead body.” “You can’t just make things up and call them Canadian proverbs!”

A Holiday Tradition: Mystic has a boat parade, holiday trivia, a lantern tour, a light show at the planetarium, and — in a hilarious nod towards this very Hallmark-y onslaught of festive activities — a Christmas eve party / toy drive / talent show. What sets Mystic Christmas apart, though, is that this is a movie that’s actually about traditions and the role that traditions play in the holidays. Hallmark movies are so built around these rituals that I added a section to the SIOSI format just to track the wacky, impractically public and unbelievably well-attended events these movies make characters attend on Christmas Eve. Juniper is a lead whose only tradition is having no tradition, and she low-key scoffs at the notion (“Are they traditions because you like those things or remember them?”). What we have here is a Hallmark movie that is in dialogue with one of the central tenets of Hallmark as genre.

Does the Title Make Any Sense?: Aside from the misleading allusion to Mystic Pizza, Mystic Christmas is a solid title. This is very much how Mystic does Christmas. However, if there were a few more scenes of the superstar seal, I’d want this movie to be retitled Peppermint’s Christmas Tail.

Our Take: Just as last year’s Haul Out the Holly proved that the Hallmark formula could easily translate to a straight-up comedy, Mystic Christmas proves that we can expect a lot more from the traditional Hallmark rom-com. For one thing, the format can handle a lot more com. As I’ve already mentioned, Mystic Christmas sets a multiple-quips-per-minute pace that it actually keeps up for the duration of its run. There really isn’t a spare or stray line of dialogue in the movie, and the number of callbacks to previous jokes is impressive. This is the kind of Hallmark movie that will still have new gags every time you rewatch it, and you know Hallmark is going to replay this for two solid months.

Mystic Christmas is also one of the first, and therefore one of the few, traditional Hallmark romances that realizes it has two hours to fill on the schedule and fills out the plot accordingly. Meaning: there are multiple plots in this movie. Juniper and Sawyer take the lead, of course, but all three of Juniper’s interns get character arcs, as does one of Sawyer’s employees. Most notable, though, has to be Candace’s daughter Louisa, played by Delaney Quinn (The Beanie Bubble). She also gets to rise to a challenge and be endearingly precocious too, in a real mid-’90s Mara Wilson way.

Mystic Christmas stumbles some in the first act, but it does so because of how much it’s trying to lift. The dialogue is so fast and stylized that it could be jarring to those expecting the usual slow-paced walk and talks down conspicuously empty “downtown” sidewalks that we always get in Hallmark movies. It even feels like the movie itself is trying to keep up for the first act, as the performances find footing with the directing, writing, even the score. But once you acclimate to Mystic Christmas‘ tone, it’s just a lot of fun. And you can even see the actors really vibing, building off one another as jokes and callbacks start being laid down. Patti Murin especially has some moments where her delivery is just fantastic.

Mystic Christmas is still a movie you can put on while decorating your tree or baking cookies, but it actually requires more attention than normal. There’s that much going on, and you’ll be rewarded for keeping both eyes and ears on the screen.

Our Call: STREAM IT. And go on and plan on watching big portions of Mystic Christmas every time you see that it’s re-airing on Hallmark.