Written By: Jeremy Lim
This article contains spoilers.
In my last article discussing the possibilities for Asian American Christmas films in the future, I ended the piece by spotlighting a Lifetime made-for-TV movie that was slated to come out this holiday season titled, “A Sugar & Spice Holiday.”
On December 13th, that movie aired and for the first time, television audiences got to see a predominantly Asian American cast in a Christmas film.
The film, directed by Jennifer Liao and written by Eirene Donohue, follows Suzy (Jacky Lai), an architect who goes back home to Maine for the holidays. When she arrives back home, visions of her late, gingerbread house-obsessed grandma leads her on a journey to try and win the local baking competition, a competition that meant so much to her grandma when she was alive. Throw in Billy (Tony Giroux), an old flame, into the mix and you have a recipe for Christmas joy and love. Sound familiar?
Yes, in tried and true Lifetime Christmas movie fashion, “A Sugar & Spice Holiday” is soul-crushingly formulaic. Essentially, if you’ve seen one Lifetime Christmas flick, you’ve seen ‘em all. But that’s not me trying to come down hard on the film or even that specific sub-genre of TV movie. There is certainly a place for these kinds of films, the films where you can just lay back, kick up your feet, and turn off your brain. Though, from a story perspective, there just isn’t much here. That’s not to say that there aren’t any positives to be found.
To start, the Asian American representation is sprinkled throughout the movie pretty tastefully and effectively. Aside from a couple of cringeworthy moments here and there (like when Suzy’s mother calls Billy “all noodle, no broth”), the audience is shown parts of Chinese culture in ways that don’t feel forced or overbearing. There are red envelopes on the Yung family’s Christmas tree, the family’s beloved deceased grandma has a little shrine dedicated to her where Suzy lights incense, and stinky tofu even makes an appearance! The care and effort that went into making the representation feel authentic is apparent. As Tony Giroux told Entertainment Tonight, “Right away, I felt a certain responsibility for what this is all about.” This was also certainly helped by the fact that the director and writer are both Asian American. “Having people behind the camera that are in the same culture, it allows for the storytelling to be even more authentic,” Jacky Lai said in the same interview. For Lifetime’s first foray into Asian American storytelling, they could’ve done a lot worse. Also, as a nice bonus, Jacky Lai and Tony Giroux have a nice chemistry that had me rooting for the couple from the start.
My main problems with the film don’t really have much to do with the way Asian Americans are represented in the film or even the general “scraping the surface” feeling I felt when watching the TV movie. As I said before, beggars can’t be choosers. My problems with the film stem with a razor thin story and characters that aren’t fully developed enough for the audience to put much stock into them.
Take Suzy for example, the career woman main character that the film centers around and relies upon. Suzy’s character arc is not one with many peaks and valleys with multiple failures and setbacks leading to a big, satisfying victory in the end. No, instead, Suzy’s arc is essentially a straight line with very, very minor bumps along the way. Suzy starts out as a character who seems perfect in a lot of different ways. She is a successful architect at her firm and is very close to a promotion, having to duke it out with a man for the job. She then returns home to Maine and we learn a little about her past: how she was the typical straight-A nerd that was bullied. We also see her fail in a couple ways, which is supposed to show a sense of relatability for the audience. She makes a silly mistake during the baking competition, substituting sugar for salt, which costs her team a spot in the finals of the competition. She also then learns that she didn’t get the promotion she worked so hard for, losing out to somebody that the main character describes as, “a sugar-free lemon square.”
All of these would normally be fine examples of pitfalls that the character has to fall into to show audiences that they are in fact human beings and not just written characters. However, these failures in Suzy’s life are resolved within about 15 minutes of the problems arising. As it turns out, Suzy and her ragtag team of multicultural bakers end up moving on to the final, decisive round of the town’s baking competition because another team actually cheated! How convenient! Then, we also find out that, in fact, Suzy didn’t lose out on the promotion. Earlier, a video was sent to her by her assistant of Mr. Lemon Square popping champagne, leading the two to think that the promotion was all but lost. However, it turns out Mr. Lemon Square was celebrating getting engaged to his better half, Mrs. Lemon Square if you will. Well, isn’t that also mighty convenient?
In the end, Suzy gets the win at the baking competition, making herself and her grandmother proud. She gets the promotion, and unsurprisingly, gets the guy. The only two or three mistakes that she makes are instantly wiped out and we are left with a character that is too perfect to actually exist. Now to be clear, I’m not saying you can’t have a character win at the end of a story for them to be “real.” I am not lamenting the idea of a strong, career-focused Asian American woman being successful. However, I am lamenting the fact that the film decides to give Suzy anything and everything in this film. She’s too shiny, too untouched, too without fault. It leaves me feeling like I’m watching a written character, not just Suzy from Maine. Though, as a big plus for Suzy’s character and the film, she actually picks her career over the guy, deciding that she would accept trying to do long-distance. Billy instead tells her that he would be willing to follow her to Australia, where her promotion is leading her. Suzy wears the pants in the relationship and the two end up happily ever after.
Moving off Suzy for a moment, her parents are introduced as seemingly important figures in her life and upbringing but aren’t given a chance to really shine. Mimi (Lillian Lim), Suzy’s mom, is left ranting about how people in their neighborhood don’t want “authentic” Chinese food while her father (played by the legendary Tzi Ma) is saddled with no character whatsoever besides the fact that he has a southern accent. Even Suzy’s grandma (Cindy Piper), who is generally rather likeable as a sweet ol’ lady, is burdened with a horrific Cantonese accent. She only speaks one line of Cantonese within the entire runtime of the film but it left a sour taste in my mouth. I had to rewind several times to understand what was being said in Cantonese but when I admitted defeat, I asked for help from my family. My sister, who is fluent in Cantonese, heard the phrase a handful of times and got nowhere either. Finally, I called in the big guns, my mother. If anybody could understand this godforsaken line, it was going to be her. After a couple of rewinds and a raising of the volume, my mom finally understood what was being said. “She’s saying your life will be sweet. What an awful accent,” my mom remarked. I get it, these Lifetime TV Christmas movies are basically just vehicles for us to see the leading man and woman get together in the end but that doesn’t mean we should disregard the rest of the ensemble.
Overall, “A Sugar & Spice Holiday” is your average, run-of-the-mill Lifetime Christmas film with an incredibly forgettable story and characters that aren’t fleshed out well enough to become too attached to. That being said, the cast does a decent job with what they’re given and the little nods to Chinese and Chinese American culture throughout the film were very rewarding and satisfying to see. Just to see a cast and crew filled with Asian Americans is a triumph for the Asian American community and this cannot be overstated. Yes, the film isn’t great. But, it isn’t cloyingly awful or culturally insensitive either. That may seem like a low bar but for the first of its kind, they do a fine job. If this film is the last of its kind, I believe people will look back at this movie and think “Man, that was it?”, but if this is just the first of many Asian American Christmas movies to come, people may look back and think fondly on our humble beginnings.
“A Sugar & Spice Holiday” next airs December 24th at 10am ET on Lifetime. The film is also available to watch online.