Nerds That Geek Movie Review: ‘The 5-Year Christmas Party’

Written by John Edward Betancourt

Jordan Fisher and Katie Findlay as Max and Alice in THE 5-YEAR CHRISTMAS PARTY. (Photo Courtesy of Borja Moncunill/Hallmark.) ©2024 Hallmark Media

One thing that we can all agree upon, is that the holiday season is more than just presents and joy and caroling and cocoa. It is also… a wonderful time of reflection. For once we hit December, the new year is lurking around the corner and that is the perfect time to think about the year we lived through, and whether or not we achieved our goals. So, we know what to celebrate at the end of the year and what we need to strive for in the forthcoming year. Which is yet another reason that the holiday season is supremely important and relevant to our lives, and one would think with that kind of thinking… that all of us make great progress because of it.
​
But what’s funny… is that it’s about a 50/50 split on that line of thinking. Because while there are indeed people who take the lesson to heart and buckle down for what lie ahead… there are others who don’t. These are the folks that find themselves wondering why they can’t find success sooner or why it eludes them. Or why they cannot have what they really want in their life. Because this season of reflection informs them of what they are afraid of and what they know will take sacrifice to obtain that they are not ready to commit to. But they get there eventually, it just takes the epiphany and understanding, as evidenced by the new Hallmark movie, The 5-Year Christmas Party.

Which is a film that is told over the course of five years, wherein we spend time with two eager and ambitious individuals; Alice and Max. Who are young and ready to take on the world, and over the course of that five-year run, we see them go after hard goals and begin to achieve them. For Max wants to be one of the biggest actors on the planet and begins to reach that goal faster than expected, and Alice, wants nothing more than to be part of the theater scene in New York, and works hard to achieve it. But what eludes them the most and what they cannot seem to obtain, despite reflecting upon it year after year, is their love for another. For they know they connect but their goals consistently get in the way, and it will indeed take time, and a touch of maturity… and a desire to have what they really want… to enjoy the love they feel for each other.

---

Katie Findlay and Jordan Fisher as Alice and Max in THE 5-YEAR CHRISTMAS PARTY. (Photo Courtesy of Allister Foster/Hallmark.) ©2024 Hallmark Media

That is of course… the perfect way to explore the central theme in question, in a very realistic light. Because that is so many of us at the end of the year. Where we are happy with one thing but not the other, and we desperately want that elusive thing, but something always somehow gets in the way. And this film does an amazing job of exploring how people put that off, and how people lament not having it often, to paint that perfect picture of how hard it is for our minds sometimes to push us to get what we really want in this life. Not because we are failures or dumb, or anything in that line of thinking. But because… we sometimes don’t know… how to let go and embrace the big stuff. Embrace that which really makes us happy… for several reasons.
​
Because what we really want is scary, and there is always a worry that letting go and having what we want… will somehow transform us and not make us hungry or driven anymore. So, we hang onto it, and we let the fear control us. But thankfully this story does take the time to inform us how happy we will become when we let go of the fear, when we embrace change and let our strength push us toward new challenges, and those are magical lessons to find in a Hallmark feature. Which also reminds us, that this brand is taking its own advice and embracing change and embracing wonder by giving us stories that now look at real things people deal with and can overcome with the kind of quality advice we find in this particular feature.

All of which gives rise to an inspiring and lovely Hallmark film. One that really does inform us, to just go for it, and really embrace that which will make us happy. Not to mention, it does so in a very epic manner. Because encompassing five years in a life is no easy task in an eighty-four-minute runtime, much less two. But by focusing upon the holiday season here and using its thoughtfulness to bring about summary and eventual changes, allows for this story to work well. But most important of all, this is a film that also challenges the viewer, and tasks them with looking at their own lives and pondering upon whether or not they have embraced change and have properly chased what they want. So, they too can enjoy the peace and happiness that comes with going for broke and chasing our dreams.

---