My least favorite way for a plot to proceed is the non-linear fashion.  Luckily, Let It Snow (2019) is not that kind of movie.  Its method for conveying the story is, however, my second most annoying manner: one with no main character and several threads coming to together, hopefully.  It is slightly redeemed by some of the philosophy it purveys, but this, too, can only be taken so far.  I will elaborate on this later, but it is of a sort of bland deism to which far too many people subscribe these days.  Whatever it is you call this, it takes place on Christmas Eve, and there is even a scene in a church.  Does it talk about the birth of Jesus?  Nope, but there are some moments with which this Catholic can work.

The way I am going to have to work the synopsis of Let It Snow is going to be different from how I approach most reviews.  Remember how I was complaining about non-linear stories?  Well, call me a hypocrite because I am starting at the end.  Part of this is because we are dealing with an ensemble cast, and the only time you see them all together is at the conclusion.  It is a party hosted by Waffle Town employee and aspiring disc jockey (DJ) Keon (Jacob Batolon).  Hoping to launch his career in music, and with a snow storm keeping everyone local on Christmas Eve, his first plan had been to have the soiree at this parents’ house.  When they are forced to stay home instead of going on their planned trip, he shifts the location to the restaurant.  He is also friends with everyone else, so they naturally flock to his planned celebration.  Among these are Angie (Kiernan Shipka), who everyone calls “The Duke” (I will be calling her Angie) and Tobin (Mitchell Hope).  Tobin is secretly in love with Angie, and at the beginning it is Keon who encourages Tobin to ask her out.  Tobin claims to be getting up the courage to proclaim his feelings, but he spends most of the film afraid to directly say anything to her on the matter.  Instead, he follows her to a separate party where she is meeting an older friend of hers, JP Lapierre (Matthew Noszka).  Tobin assumes the other two are going to hook up at some point, but he does manage to steal a keg from JP’s shindig in order to eventually take to Waffle Town.  Angie does not understand Tobin’s jealous behavior, but she later finds him on the roof of Waffle Town, and they say what everyone has been expecting them to say to one another.  Next, we have Julie Reyes (Isabela Merced).  She has come to the party after getting encouragement from her mother, Debbie (Andrea de Oliveira), to attend Columbia where she has been accepted.  Julie needs the push because Debbie has cancer, and the daughter feels it her duty to stay at home and take care of her mother.  Julie is happy to be going, but she is about to get a further happiness when she is surprised by the arrival of Stuart Bale (Shameik Moore).  Then again, everyone is surprised by his presence since he is a world-famous pop singer.  It means a little more to Julie, though, because the two of them have spent the entire day together.  She had taken the train into Chicago where she had hoped to purchase a rare figurine for her mother’s collection.  On the way back, Julie runs into Stuart.  While she is not starstruck, she is at least thankful for his manners when he returns her phone that had fallen from her pocket.  He had decided to take a break from the tour bus and ride the rails, and she is further touched when he mentions that he had been about to spend Christmas alone in a hotel room.  Instead, they end up at her place where he is eventually found by his annoyed publicist, Kira (D’Arcy Carden).  They think it is the last time they will see each other until he comes to Waffle Town.  Finally, there is Addie (Odeya Rush) and Dorrie (Liv Hewson).  They are roommates and best friends, but they are more worried about their separate relationships instead of being good to one another.  Dorrie works at Waffle Town and Addie rides with her on the way into work.  During the trip, Addie complains about her boyfriend, Jeb (Mason Gooding).  He has been ignoring her texts and she thinks he is about to break up with her.  Addie feels like her own feelings towards Kerry (Anna Akana), a girl on whom Addie has a crush, are being ignored.  Dorrie thinks Addie is being self-centered and the two go their separate ways for the rest of the day.  During the course of her meanderings, Addie is picked up by the Tin Foil Woman (Joan Cusack), who also acts as the narrator to this mess.  The Tin Foil woman drives a tow truck, which is quite busy on a day like today, and sees young people as too preoccupied with their phones.  Nonetheless, she drops Addie off at Waffle Town where she finally confronts Jeb.  It does not go well, nor does Dorrie attempts at consoling.  Dorrie has been dealing with Kerry, who is too afraid to display her true feelings and remains closeted.  It is Dorrie who makes the peace offering, purchasing a pet pig for Dorrie and having Tin Foil Woman return her to Waffle Town.  The two best friends reconcile, and Kerry admits to mutual affection for Dorrie.  The film concludes with Tin Foil Woman watching everything from the parking lot before eventually driving away.

By the way, even if Tin Foil Woman is the narrator of Let It Snow, one must contend with the fact that her moniker is earned.  She has lined the outside of her clothing with Reynolds Wrap, and it is mysterious to everyone why she does so.  The one character who is a little less mysterious is Billy (Miles Robbins), a co-worker of Dorrie and Keon.  It is he that made me think of the bland deism I described in the introduction.  Any sort of divine intervention is attributed by Billy to “the universe” making it happen.  I am sure many of you reading this review are familiar with the phrase.  This Catholic is of two minds about it.  The purist in me is annoyed.  I am aware of anti-Christian sentiment in this country and world that wants to distance itself from the God who created everything, including this faceless universe to which the film and everyone else refers.  The universe is real, but I wonder if people ask themselves who created it?  Even atheist astro-physicists acknowledge that the cosmos has a starting point.  Who was it that pulled the trigger?  On the hand, some of the things that they say about what the universe can do can be attributed to God, which gives me some hope that those same people will eventually land in the right place.  Some of this sounds like fortune cookie wisdom, but when Billy talks about the universe always having the answer, and that it will provide exactly what is needed, I hear echoes in Faith.  The “universe,” or whatever you want to call it, does not have a will, but God does.  He is the one who answers you and provides exactly what you need when you need it because He wills nothing but the best for you.  There is a popular poem that is liked by Christians and non-believers called “Footprints.”  In it, the writer is looking back on the marks his feet made in the sand, and noticing not just his own, but those of God walking beside him.  At times, it looks like the second set disappears, which the writer takes as being abandoned by God.  Instead, God corrects by saying that the moments when only one pair of feet are visible are when God carried the writer.  The universe cannot do that for you, only God can.  It would be nice if people acknowledged this fact.

Despite my problems with the universe discussion, I am willing to acknowledge that Let It Snow is better than I expected.  There are some problems I have with it as a practicing Catholic, and I wish all the characters shared more screen time.  But there are worse Christmas films to watch.