Hot Frosty
by Russell Hainline
Oh Dear Readers, what can I possibly tell you about Hot Frosty that you don’t already know?
That it has some fish out of water jokes?
That it it takes place in a quirky small town?
That romance wins in the end?
You know all this. Either you like the Netflix versions of Hallmark Christmas movies or you do not. If you do not, then no amount of shirtless Dustin Mulligan will save you.
If you do, then fine, join me on my couch as I work my way through a loaf of Cranberry Walnut Bread and a jar of almond butter. Please join me on my nervous breakdown, but bring your own loaf of bread as I’m very tense and will not be sharing.
Here is the plot of Hot Frosty. In the cute little town of Hope Springs lives Kathy, played by Lacey Chabert. Kathy runs a diner at which she greets all of her customers by name and whips up chocolate chip pancakes off the menu for children on request. Kathy is a widow. Her friend Mel, who runs an up-scale thrift store, gives her a red scarf that is meant to encourage her to get out there more. IDK man, it’s a nice scarf, but Mel gifts it as though this used scarf is made from solid gold. It’s just a scarf, lady, calm down.
I guess Kathy isn’t that impressed either, because she puts it around the neck of a snowman and goes home. The snowman is right across from the store, won’t Mel notice it? Rude, Kathy!
The snowman comes to life in the form of a very ripped Dustin Milligan who some of us know and adore from Schitt’s Creek. He is so extremely ripped that I am kinda worried about his health.
Anyway, he wears nothing but the scarf which trails strategically over his private bits. Is it frozen in place? Did it come with doubled-sided tape?
He breaks the shop window, steals some clothes, adopts the name ‘Jack’ because it’s written on the clothes, and ends up staying with Kathy for plot reasons. Romance commences.
It fascinates me that Hallmark Christmas Movies are such a distinct genre that I keep wanting to describe Hot Frosty as a Hallmark movie even though it is not. It is a Netflix movie, which I assume is why we get to see so very much of Dustin as he runs around town in his scarf and double-sided tape.
I’d say this was a middle-of-the-road entry in the Hallmark-esque Netflix movie pantheon. The production values were not great. The supporting actors were not great. The comedy is not so much broad as belabored. I did not feel a vast amount of chemistry between Kathy and Jack.
Jack is a snowman? Sure, fine.
He doesn’t understand the ways of humans but he can read? Whatever, I’ll roll with it.
But when Jack is supposedly melting to death (relax, that’ll never happen), then which parts of him, exactly, are melting?
There the poor dude sits in a pool of sweat or melted snow or whatever the hell, but his mass appears to be exactly the same. I have questions.
Perhaps it was the overall glaring artificiality that made a few moments of seemingly real emotion all the more moving. Lacey Chabert plays Kathy with a powerful sense of deep sadness, the kind where you are all cried out so you walk around smiling and chatting with people as though nothing is wrong but secretly you are dying inside. It’s a much deeper performance than I expected.
Dustin Milligan is fabulous at physical comedy and got several large laughs from me just by being a goofball. It’s impossible to sustain a cynical mood in the face of his empathy and sweetness. The closing credits include not one but two moments that surprised, delighted, and touched me and that I thought were quite feminist.
Is this a ‘good’ movie?
I’d have to say, even by the standards of the genre, not so much.
But there were a few scenes in which all of a sudden it was very good. Also, whether it was the overall movie, the cranberry walnut bread, the almond butter, or the hypnotic effect of staring at Dustin Milligan’s kind blue eyes for 90 minutes, my nerves did in fact seem much calmer at the end of the run time. Overall, the movie was a C, but then a few scenes were A grade, so I’ll call it a B.
But truthfully, you know what you like! If this is your jam, you’ll love it, and if it isn’t, that’s ok too.
