Stream It or Skip It: ‘Reporting for Christmas’ on Hulu, Where a Serious Journalist Falls for the Subject of Her Sponcon

The holidays arrive on Hulu with the release of Reporting for Christmas, a Hallmark-style movie produced by Nicely Entertainment. In this take on the familiar holiday romance formula, Tamara Feldman plays a serious news reporter who travels to small town Iowa to do some sponcon for her station and ends up falling for her subject. It’s kinda comforting to know that while Hallmark is experimenting heavily with the holiday movie formula, independent production companies are sticking with what works — well, what usually works.

REPORTING FOR CHRISTMAS: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Tamara Feldman (Walker) plays Mary Romero, a hard-hitting TV news reporter who strives to expose corruption and make a difference. That’s why she is very confused when her boss (B Positive’s D.B. Sweeney) assigns her a holiday puff piece story to appease one of their advertisers, a toy company located in Iowa. The focus of the piece is to be the 40th anniversary of Johnson Toys’ best-selling item, the Mistle-Toads. Yes, plush toads with Santa hats and Christmas paraphernalia. Mary takes the assignment, but only if she can do the story in her hard-hitting fashion.

Mary travels to Iowa where she interviews the owner of the company, a delightful older gentleman who radiates positivity played by Chicago Med’s Torrey Hanson. Then she meets his son, Blake Johnson (General Hospital’s Matt Trudeau), a steely-eyed silver fox who wants nothing to do with this crass example of capitalism. Johnson Toys is more than just the Mistle-Toads! This is a point that Blake explains to Mary over dinner, and over a slow walk downtown, and, uh, while he’s standing wet and shirtless on his balcony in Iowa in December.

Where was I? What is this movie? Oh — yes, the Mistle-Toads. As Mary learns more about Blake, his family, his family’s company, and his family’s hometown, she realizes this is more than just a puff piece. And Blake? Blake might be more than just an interviewee…

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: This is every generic Hallmark holiday romance that you’ve watched before and will watch again.

Performance Worth Watching: While Mary Romero’s journalistic integrity is questionable, Tamara Feldman does convincingly play her with the determination of a Lois Lane… whenever she’s not swooning over the blue-eyed heir to the company sponsoring this piece. However, the most memorable part of this movie has to be Johnson Toys marketing expert Lexi’s collection of berets.

Memorable Dialogue: This is the “great” answer that Blake gives during his eventual interview: “My grandfather, the founder of Johnson Toys, he always said, ‘Anything worth doing is worth doing right.’ I know, I know — millions of people say the same thing, but I don’t know how many of’em actually live it, you know? ‘Cause to him, craftsmanship wasn’t just about doing your best work. It was about allowing other people to see the greatness for themselves.”

Either that or, “She’s making cinnamon rolls… from scratch!”

A Holiday Tradition: Weirdly enough, Blake takes Mary to precisely zero local events. He does have her try the town’s best meat loaf, and the existence of Mistle-Toads is itself a tradition — one that’s endured for 40 years.

Does the Title Make Any Sense?: It works, if only because this movie couldn’t be called The Mistle-Toads. That title sounds too similar to one of the best holiday movies ever made.

Our Take: As I’ve already mentioned a few times, Reporting for Christmas is exactly what you think it is before you even hit “play” on Hulu. Mary and Blake have a frosty relationship that heats up the more they learn about each other. Mary is gradually charmed by the small town, eventually realizing that city life ain’t all it’s cracked up to be. Everything goes according to plan — almost.

I don’t ask for originality in holiday romances, nor do I even ask for realism. Christmas is a time of magic, a time where small businesses can stare down land developers, a time where promotions are granted along with permission to telecommute from the country, a time where a whole lot of attractive people in their late 40s finally find love in the form of their old high school crush. What I ask for isn’t actual realism, but emotional realism. Reporting for Christmas has a few problems that don’t bother me logically, but emotionally. The feels are off.

Take Mary. She’s a serious journalist, period. That’s really all we know about her. So why isn’t she at all hesitant about flirting with and falling for the subject of her piece? That’s kind of a major ethical no no! Now, Mary can — and probably should — fall for the very guy she’s interviewing. It’s not logical, but there is no movie if these two don’t have chemistry. So, emotionally, why is there no conflict? Romances love throwing obstacles in the way of love, and this is actually a big one that connects to the core of Mary’s character! Instead, it’s just glossed over because Blake shows her some of his grandfather’s rustic paintings.

The emotions are also off when Mary comes around to thinking that this puff piece can be a real piece of journalism. The story of the Mistle-Toads and Johnson Toys never rises above being a generic human interest story, which is something that Mary expressed absolutely no interest in at first. I kept waiting for Mary, the dogged investigative journalist, to actually uncover something serious about Johnson Toys. Of course I don’t expect a holiday movie that’s meant to be put on while you bake cookies, wrap presents, or precariously tiptoe on a ladder to affix a string of lights to a tree to expose unfair working conditions in a fictional toy company’s factory. But… something, anything, any source of conflict that relates to the one thing we know about Mary and would force her to choose between her job or her new love would have been nice. As it stands, the actual conflict between Blake and Mary that drives them apart 70 minutes in is so convoluted that I could not write an ending explained post — and I regularly explain the endings of Marvel shows.

Our Call: SKIP IT. Reporting for Christmas is so by-the-numbers that it feels like old news.