Holiday Movie Advent Day 2: A Shoe Addict's Christmas

In the spirit of the holiday season, Pittsburgh City Paper presents a holiday movie advent calendar. One holiday movie review, every day 'til Christmas (probably).

I did not expect a movie called A Shoe Addict’s Christmas to be so little about shoes and so much about Christianity and time travel.

The Hallmark Channel original stars Candace Cameron Bure as Noelle, a department store employee who is struggling with her faith, wants to be a photographer, likes shoes, and has a mildly strained relationship with her dad after her mom’s death.

When she gets trapped in the department store overnight during a snowstorm, Noelle meets an angel/spirit guide (Jean Smart) who acts like a deranged Christmas clown. She tells Noelle life’s passing her by, she needs to take more chances, needs to regain her faith, etc.

The angel gives her a pair of shoes that, when Noelle puts them on, makes her travel back in time to very minor conflicts in her life, like when she didn’t get coffee with her dad once, forever hindering their relationship.

Noelle is also in charge of a firefighter gala sponsored by the department store, along with firefighter Jake (Luke Macfarlane), who is also her new neighbor. He looks like a very good looking cardboard box. They don’t get along at first because he wants balloons and other fun/childish things at the gala and she is uptight, just like all women, am I right?!

The funniest thing movies do is try to show how a character is Very Good at their artistic talent, but it almost always winds up being terrible. Like how Carrie Bradshaw’s writing is supposed to be good but is actually unreadable. In Shoe Addict, Noelle is supposed to be a great photographer (she enters a loose photo contest at one point). Her photos, however, look like they were taken with a potato, or a flip phone. All the other characters are telling her to pursue her dream, but if I saw a blurry black-and-white photo of a firefighter lighting a Christmas tree, I'd tell her to throw her dreams in the dumpster! Just kidding. She can keep it as a hobby.

The angel keeps leaving shoes for Noelle to put on so she can travel back in time/travel ahead in time to what her life would be like if she got coffee with her dad once. It's all some metaphor for what happens when you lose your faith/stray from God/I don't know I'm Jewish. At the beginning of the movie, Noelle decides not to put on her cross necklace. But at the end, when she understands the meaning/religion of Christmas, she puts it on.

At one point the angel explains to Noelle that sometimes God offers signs, only she calls them “sleighs,” as in, when God offers you a sleigh, you should hop on. In this metaphor, is God also Santa? Is that a thing? To top it off, Noelle's last name is carpenter. Noelle Carpenter. Noelle means Christmas, which is Jesus’ birthday, who was a carpenter. Stab me!

It’s a Hallmark Movie, so obviously, the plot is useless and the acting is terrible. That’s the point! But even for a cheesy Christmas movie, A Shoe Addict's Christmas is brutal. The story is especially nonsensical and the acting is extremely wretched. Each sentence uttered by Candace Cameron Bure is painful and I kept waiting for her to stop uttering sentences.

A Shoe Addict's Christmas is now airing on the Hallmark Channel.