A Hollywood Christmas follows Jessica, a popular Christmas movies director, whose life is now shaping up like a Christmas rom-com. The movie is now streaming on HBO Max.
Warning: This article contains heavy spoilers
Plot summary
During the shoot of her latest film, Jessica, a director known for her Christmas movies, crosses paths with Christopher, the new finance guy of the network where her movies are released.
Christopher came here to inform her about the complete staff change the network has been through.
Amidst all of these new changes, they have also decided to shut down the Christmas Movie Division. They want to focus more on thrillers and avoid competition from the already-established networks that produce Christmas movies every year.
Jessica and Christopher argue over the concept of Christmas movies. The former tries to close the conversation by stating that she isn’t giving up on these.
Christopher claimed that he will be present during the entire shoot of Jessica’s final film to oversee the budget she will use.
Jessica’s colleague, Reena, notices the whole fight and connects all the dots to suggest that Jessica’s life at this point is more like her Christmas movies.
Big city boy meets small town girl, and then there is a conflict between them, but somehow the magic of Christmas brings them together. All of this makes sense here.
Though Jessica is against the idea of having Christopher on the set, he manages to find his place. He helps her out with the actors and all the problems the production faces.
Jessica and Christopher eventually come close and, over dinner, figure out what makes them tick. Jessica reveals how watching Christmas movies with her grandmother encouraged her to be who she is today.
Jessica started thinking that Christopher cared. She even changed her story a bit upon his advice.
Things went the other way when the new network president, Theresa, arrived on the set. She disclosed to Jessica that they will be cutting her budget in the middle of the production.
According to Reena, Jessica tried to change her story, and now that’s the reason her own real-life story is facing problems.
Jessica, on her side, just got mad at Christopher for pretending to help all the time. If that wasn’t enough, Christopher broke her heart by revealing that Theresa is his wife over a text.
A Hollywood Christmas ending explained in detail:
How does Christopher try to fix things?
Jessica confronted Christopher, and he had a good explanation on his side. He didn’t really understand the amount of money Jessica needed to finish the film.
From that point on, Jessica completely ignored Christopher. Before Christopher could leave, Reena told him about the big gesture one of the leads usually makes in Christmas movies.
Jessica continued her shoot, and the production eventually ran into problems. With a really low budget in their hands, it was hard to pull off the final scene involving the Christmas celebrations.
Christopher had some ideas, and Jessica’s crew urged her to at least listen. He planned on bringing students from a summer theatre program his nephew is at to be the people of the town in Jessica’s movie.
For the music band, he had a church choir that could come as part of a community outreach event.
Jessica gave this all a thought, and Reena advised that everything doesn’t have to be perfect.
Does Jessica confront her character flaw?
Everything went right, but the church choir had to back out at the last moment. Jessica found herself in a crisis again.
Reena thought of fixing this, much like how every Christmas film does it. She asked Jessica to face her character flaw like every lead character in a Christmas movie does.
Jessica admitted that her perfectionism gets in her way. She proceeds to tell them the reason behind it and gets emotional talking about her childhood.
Jessica’s parents fought every day, and this forced her to be perfect so that her parents won’t have another thing to fight about. Christmas at her grandma’s was her safe space. That was the only day everyone would try to be on their best behavior.
What makes Theresa change her mind?
With Jessica admitting her flaw, ideas came walking their way. A Santa arrived, and Jessica decided to involve her production crew in the film as the people of the town.
Christopher wanted Theresa to see the magic of Christmas, but Jessica’s team wasn’t on time. Theresa opted to leave after waiting for too long, but a Grinch reference reminded Jessica that there must be a reason Theresa hates Christmas.
She went up front and asked her about it. Theresa revealed how she lost the lead position in a Christmas pageant when she was young.
Jessica gave Theresa another chance to live that day by asking her to sing in her movie’s Christmas band. Theresa not only sang but also enjoyed it to the fullest.
This reminded Theresa of the feeling she gets from these Christmas movies. She acknowledged that their network needs this and offered Jessica a contract for three more Christmas movies.
Do Jessica and Christopher end up together?
After Theresa’s offer, Christopher made one of his own. He wanted to be close to Jessica and wondered if she needed a producer for her next three films.
The couple was about to lock a kiss, but Jessica remembered that Theresa is Christopher’s wife. Christopher was surprised to hear that, and when Jessica told him about his text, he realized that his phone’s voice-to-text feature had messed things up.
Christopher meant work-wife that day, not his real wife. Reena explained that this is the classic misunderstanding part of the Christmas movies, and that brought Jessica and Christopher together.
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