Peter Sullivan’s “The Merry Gentlemen” (2024) is an entirely bland, uncharacteristic Christmas glossy romance. It’s silly, sporadic and hyper-contrived. The proceedings flatten in a lump of dullness. Charm is amped up between the characters when what exists instead is a complete lack of chemistry. The film is just hollowed out by an absence of specific texture. What could have been a frothy, harmless breezy watch quickly turns tiring, predictable, and terribly uncool. Nothing seems to propel it. It runs on empty. Marla Sokoloff’s screenplay collapses to triteness from the very opening stretch.
You wonder how deeply the makers have invested any thought in strands of the narrative. Conclusion springs easily that none of the considerations in fleshing out a lively, compelling story jump-start. The characters lack a zing in their interactions. Banality crowds the film. A town coming back to life, a dancer replaced in showbiz, and a local milieu bustling with new energy-these are jaded tropes. “The Merry Gentlemen” does nothing to resurrect these with any flair or humor.
The Merry Gentlemen (2024) Plot Summary & Movie Synopsis:
Does the Film Capture the True Spirit of Christmas?
Christmas is a time of good cheer, merrymaking, and renewed spirit. It signals a fresh start, courage, and fortitude to chart a journey anew. It is a season of happiness, joy, and abandon, a possibility of newly charged ambition. A reorientation towards life begins. It’s that tipping point, a recognition of life’s new visions that the film encompasses.
The film is geared to envisaging a new direction of life. Its realization centers the film in a gush of clarity and purpose. But this unravels in such a ham-fisted manner, that a plodding handling of the epiphanies doesn’t shine through. It’s weakened by a paucity of basic understanding of character development, a surge of growth. The film wants to be cheerful, energetic, and brisk, but it’s not held in good stead by writing that has the capability to sparkle brightly.
Can Ashley Save the Rhythm Room and Rediscover Herself?
Britt Robertson essays Ashley, a dancer living her dream in New York City, working with the Jingle Belles. However, showbiz is transient moody, and whimsical. One fine morning, you find everything shifted brutally, your life thrown askew. Ashley is hurled into a tight spot when she is informed she will be replaced by a new entrant, Shelby. The gig needs fresh blood, she is told. She heads home to Sycamore Creek, the small town where she is from.
When she arrives in the town, she discovers the club her parents run, Rhythm Room, is desperately flailing. There are months of due rent that are stacked up. Faucets are perennially leaking. Nobody shows up. The place is almost dead. The owner gives an ultimatum and tells her the place has found a new taker. Ashley is heartbroken but also determined that she will do her best to keep the club afloat. This is where her journey as an artist took its baby steps. It is the foundation of her childhood and holds so many memories along with her family. She can’t just let it fold up and disappear.
How does Ashley get Rhythm Room buzzing again?
Luckily she has a charming guy, a local repairman Luke (Chad Michael Murray) who swoops in. He professes that he wants to help out at the club since her parents were the first ones who completely made him feel at home when he moved into the town. Ashley cracks the idea to mount a male revue. She choreographs it, taking Luke, her brother-in-law Rodger, and bartender Troy. There’s skepticism advanced by certain quarters but the Christmas-themed revue, where the men basically strip and show off their abs, is a raging success.
An enormity of raving word-of-mouth starts pulling people into the club. Things start looking bright for the club, which has been sinking for years. Everyone predicted its imminent collapse. Ashley proves them wrong by winning quiet confidence and ease of being, wielding all her Broadway training.
We also come to know Luke came to the town with his girlfriend. However soon after moving in, she left him and the place. He stayed back, nursing his broken heart. It is Ashley who summons the spark in him once again. They start dating and going out. He is generous, attentive, and exceedingly sweet. All the men in the film are wonderful and nice, not snagging the credit of the woman who makes them soar. But there’s little depth and dimension to the characters. So it’s solely saccharine.
The Merry Gentlemen (2024) Movie Ending Explained:
Does Ashley get her job back?
However, not all perfectly shiny endeavors can go as smoothly as one would like them to. Inevitably bumps come up. A hard, necessary decision has to be made. A dilemma is thrust that has to be met with grace and honesty. Ashley encounters a similar tough moment. She gets a call back from her NYC job. She is re-offered the position she lost, with a substantive raise. There are other perks offered as well. It is enormously lucrative as an offer, one she hesitates over internally even though she initially says yes. Her parents are a little crestfallen but they encourage her to go. No one in their right mind would turn down such an offer.
Luke is hugely heartbroken. Once again he finds himself on the cusp of abandonment. His life threatens to return to square one, the dark place he found himself in when his girlfriend left him. Ashley’s flight to NYC is right before Christmas Eve. She is on her way to the airport when she finally gets a grip on what she truly would feel happy about. She returns to the club where she apologizes to Luke for keeping him hanging.
The film ends on a sunny note with Ashley paying back the owner all the debt her parents owe on account of the club. The family has assembled for a nice Christmas dinner, including Luke. Ashley may not be sure of what her future looks like but she has decided to stay in the town and see what she can do around here. She has the skills and smarts; she will sail through.
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