Big city/small town dichotomy (plus some Austen!)

I love cheesy television movies. The only thing better is holiday-themed cheesy tv movies, so I totally thought I was in luck with The Twelve Men of Christmas, which aired on La-La-Lifetime. I mean, it has Kristin Chenoweth searching for guys to pose in a calendar! What could be better?

Well, I should've actually read the description of the movie, because then I would've found out that the movie is set in Montana. And Kristin plays a woman from New York who winds up there, a situation to which I can somewhat relate, having moved from Connecticut to Montana when I was 16. And as soon as the movie started and she arrives in Kalispell and the mayor is all, "Call me Mayor Bob!" and she's all, "Everyone here is so nice!" I knew what would happen. She'd wind up falling in love not only with the telegraphed love interest, but also with the town. No, she'd realize. New York City is too out of touch.

Scenes toward the end proved me right. The expensive real estate! Restaurants that are so hip that they don't answer the phone! Aggressive pedestrians! Who would want to live like that when they could live in Kalispell, where you have to drive hours to get to the nearest Gap? (And point. You wouldn't have to drive all the way to Billings [which is closer to 8 hours away, not 10] to get to a Gap. Spokane is maybe 4 hours away. Not great, by any means, but not quite that bad.)

And it's not that I'm saying that life in a small, Montana town is necessarily bad. It isn't. I'm just sick of movie after movie showing someone who's happy with their life in the big city until something forces them to go to a small town and then they realize What They Were Missing. Because you know what? It doesn't always happen that way. I spent 2 years in a town in Montana, happy with certain aspects (lack of humidity, good theater program at my high school, no speed limit), but frustrated with the isolation and the closed-mindedness of a number of the people.

What's that I said? Closed-mindedness? How can that be? These people are nice and welcoming of outsiders! Well, except when the attitude you get from a number of people is, "Oh, you're from the East? You must think we're idiots." And you get this attitude as a reaction to absolutely nothing. (True story. I go with my mom to set up my school schedule. The guidance counselor tells us with no provocation, "I know you're from Connecticut and think you can't get a good education here, but you can.") A lot of people in Montana don't like Easterners. They don't like Californians. There's a reason the Unabomber wound up there, people.

And yes, I have my Montana prejudices, in good part from having to move there after my sophomore year of high school. I look back now in some fondness (again, great theater program where I met a LOT of cool people), but would I rather have stayed in Connecticut? Hells yeah. And where am I now? In a suburb of DC. I got out of Montana as soon as I could and went to a college within an hour of two major cities--though in a small town. I appreciate both worlds.

I was distracted from my annoyance in the middle part of the movie, when I realized that this was some sort of Pride & Prejudice remake/homage/update/something. Kristin's character? EJ. Her assistant/coworker? Jan. Her love interest? Will. It'd didn't dawn on me until Will confesses his feelings while admitting that he's repulsed by the idea. Then it all fell into place. Particularly when they were like, "It's crazy how proud I seemed!" and "I can't believe I was so prejudiced against you!" and I remembered Will telling Jan's love interest to back off from her (for no apparent reason). I have no idea why they went this direction. It kind of worked, though it was a bit heavy at times. Though honestly, it's a cheesy, holiday-themed tv movie. Why am I surprised?