Enchanting Christmas
It's like if Hot Fosty was a chick.
Hot Frosty may be getting all the attention this holiday season (because abs!), but did you know there’s another enchanted-frozen-sculpture-coming-to-life-and-becoming-a-love-interest movie out this year? Neither did I, until I decided to dig around on Amazon Prime and brave a few commercials (this thing where you’re already paying for Prime Membership and they still make you watch ads is not cool, but whatevs).
Enchanting Christmas hooked me on the premise: frozen ice princess comes to life, dates hot dad. As nerdy as this sounds, I wanted to see how that would play out as something a character had willed to happen instead of Random Christmas Magic because Netflix paid some consulting firm a couple mil to discover that ladies like abs.
I haven’t done a recap in a bit and let’s be real, none of my half-dozen readers are actually going to watch this thing, so here it is. CONTAINS SPOILERS!!!
Ben is a smokin’-ass thirst trap of a single dad who lives in a charming shack in the middle of the woods with The Same 8-Year-Old-Girl-From-Every-Christmas Movie (who will henceforth be known as 8-YOG).
They have no money, and they don’t seem to understand that this is because Ice Sculptor is not an actual profession and maybe Ben should try moonlighting as a bank teller or something. Realizing they are broke, 8-YOG wisely requests that rather spending money they don’t have on some random plastic crap from China that’s just going to break into a million pieces and live forever in a landfill (aka what every normal 8-year-old in the world wants for Christmas) her father make her an ice princess from the fairytale they’re reading in his preferred medium: frozen water and a chainsaw.
As heavy snow falls on their rural shack (somehow not felling a tree on the power lines and plunging them into freezing darkness which is what normally happens to isolated hovels during heavy snowstorms), she sneaks out of bed to gaze upon the icy visage of the Ice Lady and wishes for her to become real and also be good at math.
Once 8-YOG is back in bed, Christmas Magic happens. You can tell because twinkly music plays and there’s a close-up of the ice sculpture’s face, then of snow falling, then of a single piece of ice falling to the ground. To say that this film lacks a special-effects budget is a severe understatement.
The next day, Ben leaves his 8-year-old daughter all alone in their shack in the middle of the woods for several hours to go work on an ice sculptor commission from Martin, the town’s Rich Sleazebag (you can tell he’s a sleazebag because he has a ponytail!), who is sponsoring the town’s annual Christmas Festival (yes you can check Small-Town Christmas Festival off your Enchanting Christmas bingo card). Despite this obvious Child Protective Services violation, 8-YOG goes happily wandering around all by herself in the cold, dark forest until she runs into a shivering blond lady in a green velvet evening gown.
It’s the Ice Princess! She notes with wonder that her skin hurts and she is shaking, a condition that 8-YOG helps her identify as “being cold.” After naming her Jade Frost (so as not to be confused with Jack Frost from Hot Frosty) and introducing her to hot chocolate (“hot chocolate is good! I like these white puffy things in it!” Jade says wonderingly), 8-YOG lies to her dad and says that Jade Frost is the new chorus teacher from her school, whose apartment and belongings were all destroyed in a leak and who has nowhere to go and therefore must move in with them for two weeks.
Ben, sensibly, is like “no, that’s weird.” He sends her packing but, realizing that Jade has no coat, car, belongings, or personality and is just going to go wandering out into the woods and probably die, relents. He calls the town office to report a mentally disabled homeless person in need of assistance, and Jade is connected with a local social worker and taken to a group home where she can receive food, shelter, and healthcare. LOL J/K! This is America! That would be too much Christmas Magic even for a made-for-Prime-Video Christmas romcom about an ice sculpture that comes to life.
So Jade moves into their tiny shack in the middle of the woods that is somehow larger on the inside and also has marble countertops and little Christmas tchotchkes everywhere, and over the course of several scenes repeatedly expresses surprise that food tastes good and answers “I don’t know” to very basic questions like “where are you from?” and “how did you become a Chorus teacher?”
To supplement Jade’s wardrobe of one green velvet evening gown, 8-YOG uses her very own piggy-bank savings to take her shopping, and we learn that Jade is good at math when she informs the cashier that she is holding $97, not $96.
Then they go to a Christmas crafting event where we learn that Jade is also good at art because she makes a nice glitter-snowflake, and is kind because she picks up her own trash. Standing next to the trash can is the janitor, who is actually Good Will Hunting Santa Claus (!) and breaks down the rules of this particular strain of Christmas Magic: if Jade can’t convince Ben that she in an actual ice sculpture come to life by midnight on Christmas Eve, she’ll turn back into ice, because her existence is predicated on human belief. Jade thanks him and somehow does not spend the rest of the movie wallowing in a debilitating existential crisis, and even though this is a remarkably ham-fisted approach to spelling out the Christmas Magic Parameters it’s still 87% more satisfying than what we got from Hot Frosty so I’ll take it.
Despite Jade having the personality of a literal newborn (minus the gas-smiles), she and Ben start to develop feelings for each other. He asks her on a date and she happily agrees—even though she doesn’t know what a date is!
8-YOG hauls her back to the thrift store to buy a dress, and then Ben takes her to a loud restaurant where they bump into the Rich Sleazebag and his sleazy ponytail. Ponytail Bro belittles Ben’s choice in restaurants despite also being at that restaurant, asks Jade out while she’s there on a date with another dude, and then backs into a waitress, knocks over her tray, falls down, and blames it on Ben. At this point Ben and Jade leave and get churros at a charming Christmas market. Jade cannot even with how good churros are. She runs into Janitor Santa again, who reiterates the parameters of the Christmas magic with no additional builds just in case you were out of the room pouring yourself a well-deserved stiff drink the first time.
Ponytail Bro, in a jealous rage, goes into the warehouse where Ben is building the ice sculpture that he himself commissioned and turns up the heat to 85. Despite the juicy promise of an ice-sculpture-unveiling that is actually just a giant puddle, it doesn’t melt all that much and the only real consequence is a slightly smaller sculpture and some additional ill-will between Ponytail Bro and Ben.
In the meantime, Jade has wriggled back into her green velvet Ice Princess dress and decided it’s high time she tells Ben the truth: that instead of being a Genuine Human, she is a niche 2024 made-for-streaming Frosty the Snowman fetishization trope. Alas, her revelation is scooped by 8-YOG’s actual teacher, who interrupts Ben singing Jade’s praises at the Christmas Festival to inform him that there ain’t no Jade Frost who teaches Chorus at Pinecone Springs Elementary—a fact that Ben has conveniently never bothered to fact-check because he was too busy ice sculpting and falling in love with a blonde void who loves churros.
After the ice sculpture is unveiled, Ben chews out Jade for lying to him and 8-YOG and tells her she has mental problems and needs to stay away from his family. Heartbroken, Jade returns to the shack (we never learn how—Christmas magic I guess?) and becomes an ice sculpture again. Then something clicks and Ben realizes though a series of flashbacks that Jade was for real! He and 8-YOG hop in his truck and Janitor Santa shows up and does Santa Magic to make the engine turn over and they rush home, only to find that their blond lady is back to being a hunk of ice. Ben and 8-YOG are sad but decide that him dating a lady who has only been sentient for two weeks is actually hugely problematic so maybe this is for the best. Kidding! She comes to life and they live happily ever after, Problematic Relationship Structure be damned.
I gotta say, this Christmas Movie Christmas Movie-d pretty hard. I give it three ice sculpture Christmas trees.
