The Nine Lives of Christmas

2014
Written by Nancey Silvers
Based on the book by Sheila Roberts
Directed by Mark Jean

Christmas is that time of year when one thinks of cat based romance tales (or tails), and finally someone has made a film about the thoughts that every normal person has during the season. The Nine Lives of Christmas is a nice fun film that lets the charisma of the actors and lead cat overcome a weaker script. At points things come together a bit too easily, which lessens the impacts of the personal insecurities both Zachary and Marilee are feeling. But those objections are largely inconsequential as the film is charming enough to rise above that to deliver some holiday cheer.

The best part of The Nine Lives of Christmas is that it is pretty much a reverse Garfield movie. Instead of a sassy fat cat, Ambrose is a sweet friendly cat. Instead of a dorky cartoonist, Zachary Stone is a dreamy firefighter. Instead of a vet who constantly rejects his advances, Marilee White is a vet student whose life goals give her the excuses she needs to reject a social life. And the cat doesn’t talk. Before I knew anything about the film except for a rough plot outline, it was already the film from Hallmark’s 12 Movies of Christmas event that I was most interested in.

Zachary Stone (Brandon Routh) – Firefighter who lives the single lifestyle of not wanting to get married or even have a serious relationship. He’s the envy of some of his coworkers, but Zachary’s habit of doing good deeds results in him getting a stray cat that plants the seeds of responsibility, and spending all his time with Marilee plants the seeds of romance. Also, he’s freaking Superman! Marilee White (Kimberly Sustad) – Marilee White is a sleepy but brilliant vet school student who has no time for a love life, what with all the studying and the working at a pet supply store, where she is the designated employee that deals with the problem customers. Her apartment complex is run by one of those evil landlords who are all up in your business, and if you have a pet, you are immediately evicted, which probably violates the law but will be important for plot purposes. Marilee does have a clandestine cat named Queenie, and Marilee spends most of her down time dodging questions from her friends and sister about when she’s going to get herself a boyfriend. Ambrose (???) – Ambrose is a smart cat looking for a home, and Zachary saves him from a dog, so now he’s his new owner. That’s how it works in Ambrose’s world. Ambrose finds keys, understands complex human emotions, and gets adopted as the official firehouse cat. He’s also the catalist that cause Zachary to rethink his unattached lifestyle. Becomes best buds with Queenie. Queenie (???) – Marilee’s secret cat that she can talk to to unwind after a long day or work and study. Queenie is against her apartment rules, but once evicted she can move into a spare room Zachary has. Jaclyn (Stephanie Bennett) – Marilee’s sister, Marilee raised her after their parents died, Jaclyn is now a successful real estate agent along with her husband, and is now focused on finding her sister a man. Blair (Chelsea Hobbs) – Zachary’s spoiled model girlfriend who hates hates hates pets because they interfere with her lifestyle of pretending she’s going to leave the country for a few weeks. Gets people fired and tosses out Ambrose as well. As you can imagine, she’s not the heroine of the film. Chelsea Hobbs is also in Confessions of a Go-Go Girl Ray (Sean Tyson) – A goofy fireman who knows the score with regards to Zachary’s metamorphosis into being capable of love. Mark (Dalias Blake) – A married fireman who lives vicariously through Zachary’s lifestyle and becomes concerned when he starts showing actual feelings. Chief Sam (Gregory Harrison) – The wise mentor fireman who loves cats (his wife is allergic) and saved Zachary from a burning house when he was a kid. Sarah (Jen Cheon) – Marilee’s friend who also is obsessed with getting her a date, even though she can’t get a date.

Zachary’s playboy firefighter lifestyle soon gets turned on its ear when he rescues an orange cat from a dog, the cat ends up adopting him, sneaking into his house and being too cute for nice guy Zachary to throw him out. The cat comes complete with a name tag, he’s named Ambrose. Ambrose’s owner has just died and has no relatives, thus providing the cat with a name but eliminating any prior owner conflict. As Zachary now has a cat to take care of, he starts getting pet supplies, despite insisting the arrangement is temporary until he finds a home for the cat. His indecision in the pet aisle prompts Marilee to come to his assistance, and thus begins a series of situations where the two characters keep running into each other, which is so coincidental they each comment that the other is stalking them.

Of course, things soon conspire to bring the couple together, because it’s a romance movie with a happy ending. Zachary’s evil girlfriend Blair hates Ambrose and is the daughter of Marilee’s boss, and gets Marilee fired because Marilee responded to her rudeness with sarcasm. Zachary later dumps Blair for lying to him and for tossing out Ambrose, and works to track down Marilee to apologize to her once he finds out she was fired. Marilee lies to her sister about already having a boyfriend to avoid another disaster setup, and uses Zachary as her template. She also finds Ambrose and returns him, giving the two chance to have a dinner date right before Marilee gets evicted after her cat is discovered.

Zachary restores houses as a side hobby to his firefighting, so he has an extra apartment attached to the house he’s currently fixing, and thus the pair is soon living together. They begin spending almost all their free time together, and it’s obvious to all their friends (Sarah and the firefighter trio of Ray, Mark, and Sam) that they are meant to be together, but it still takes the last half of the film before that happens.

Zachary is reluctant to have serious relationships because his parent’s marriage ended in divorce after years and years of arguments. The feelings he develops for Marilee confuse and frighten him, but Ray, Mark, and Sam are there to guide him through his impending growing up. Zachary’s reluctance doesn’t manifest itself very much in the film, the only instance is when he makes an excuse to avoid a party where Marilee’s sister is at, but it turns out to be because he needs to go to an event to promote a charity firefighter calender (the event turns out to be the same party, thus Marilee seeing him out in what is sort of a lie.) It would have been nice to see Zachary stumble more with sabotaging and trying to undo his own sabotaging, but I recognize it might be hard to keep you cheering for him if you see him doing something jerkish.

Marilee comes from parents who loved each other dearly, but they died when her sister was still young, so she had to put her college life on hold to raise her sister, and is just now getting back on track. Her insecurities manifest often, causing her to believe Zachary would never go for her, only model types. But she also paints who rooms of his house, connects appliances, sets up staging, and other handy things that obviously impress Zachary. There is also a weird bit involving mistletoe, where Marilee’s friend convinces her to put it up as a test to see if Zachary likes her. The conclusion seems to work, but is immediately excused as being just because of the mistletoe and the scene cuts away.

Despite Zachary and Marilee taking a while to realize they are in a romantic comedy and should get together, Ambrose and Queenie take a shine to each other right away. Ambrose is the more well-trained cat, doing tricks that allow him a personality, while Queenie is more of a cat who is always just sitting there to be talked to. The cat connection also expands to a thing Marilee mentions about mountain lions finding love, gets repeated so you know it will show up in the end (and it does!)

Overall, a fun cute film that will delight people who are the target audience even if the conclusion is obvious. Brandon Routh is never not charming, Kimberly Sustad fits well as a pretty but insecure vet, and Ambrose is just too cute. If you are expecting serious drama from your cat-themed Christmas romance made-for-tv movie, you will be disappointed. We need more cat romance movies, we can’t have the dog romance movies winning out! Someone do a reverse Heathcliff flick, stat!

Rated 7/10 (photog, professor, trouble, special ice cream, coworker, crazy decoration, paw stockings!)

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