Holiday in the Wild...Sorta

Christmas is finally upon us and that means one thing: vegging on the couch watching all of the holiday movies Netflix can shove down your throat. We've watched quite a few already but decided to kick off Christmas week with some Sex and the City/Parks and Rec crossover aka Holiday in the Wild.

We've been putting off watching this one because it seemed just serious enough that maybe we couldn't laugh at it (nicely). But alas here we are.

Holiday in the Wild: B.

We Summarize Things

Not really a Christmas movie? Easy to watch but the plot felt really flat throughout. We're basically just watching Charlotte York take care of elephants in Africa.

By the way, if you keep reading, this is a warning that we're going to spoil this movie.

Holiday in the Wild opens with a nice and peppy pop song on the skyline of New York City. We're confused because everyone's walking around in tshirts and stuff. Isn't this a Christmas movie? Confused.

Surprise - we see Charlotte York/Kristin Davis' family taking Christmas photos. Maybe it is Christmas? Jk, husband just said it's August. They look like a nice, happy, rich, white family like probably what Charlotte wanted, although the husband is kind of a dick. Also, who says "have a nice day" to their wife and child? Weirdo.

Flash forward like five minutes, and the kid is going off to college. Not sure what this kid is doing because who goes off to college with two suitcases, one of which is a keyboard, and no parents moving you in? Our parents definitely insisted on moving us in, so like...not sure what's up with this family.

Then, as soon as he closes the door, the husband decides this is the perfect time to tell his wife he doesn't love her anymore and is moving out. Wtf?? We have so many questions. 1. Why would you leave such a HUGE apartment in the middle of New York City? 2. You're not gonna give your kid a heads up that you're leaving his mom? 3. You're a dick?

Turns out Charlotte had booked a second honeymoon for herself and her asshole husband to go to Zambia on a safari and good for her, she decides she's gonna go alone anyway. Of course, two hours into her trip, she meets Chris Traeger! Only he's like more rugged and less positive and goofy. And also very invasive with his questions. First of all, people eating alone in restaurants don't talk to strangers, let alone eat their food?? Yeah, he ate her two-person lobster dinner. There was some sexual tension between them right from the start so that tells us they're going to end up together.

But that doesn't happen right away. She storms off because she's mad and annoyed that this total stranger is bugging her about where she's from and why she's eating alone and what happened to Mr. Conrad (oh yeah, her name is supposed to be Kate Conrad in this movie). Lo and behold, who ends up being her pilot for her safari trip the next day? Chris Traeger/Mr. Lobster Dinner. We've honestly already forgotten his name.

Their flight scene over the supposedly Zambian landscape is breathtaking. We found out it's actually mostly South Africa, but wowowow - so gorgeous. The buffalo, rhinos, warthogs, and giraffes running wild were straight out of a nature documentary. That scene really made a lasting impression. Zambia/South Africa, here we come! Just kidding. We can't right now. :(

Suddenly, Mr. Lobster lands the plane in the middle of the grasslands and walks away. Where is he going? He says to stay in the plane, but Charlotte doesn't do that. Like what if he doesn't come back? We'd follow him too. Sadly we come across an orphaned baby elephant whose mother has been killed for her ivory tusks. It's actually much more graphic than expected, but it really made us connect with the baby elephant who is rescued by Chris Traeger's friends in a truck and driven to an elephant orphanage.

Kate finagles her way in to staying at the orphanage with the rescuers and we learn she's a vet! She basically stays there the rest of her trip instead of going on the luxury safari. We assume she didn't get her money back? Must be nice to be rich.

Anyway, over the course of the next hour-ish, we see Kate bond with the baby elephant that was rescued as well as Chris Traeger, who *gasp!* has a girlfriend maybe? It's very confusing. She just kind of shows up to be a plot device but she's like not really a character in this movie. She's just there to cockblock because apparently she's supposed to be the worst. Personally, it seems a little unfair and simple-minded of the filmmakers to do this, like her only function in the movie is to be "competition" for the man. Like, this is 2020. Can we please have some more realistic depictions of two women in a movie that AREN'T fighting over a man? Geez.

Oh yeah, at some point it's Christmastime and Kate is still there. All of the elephant rescuers and orphanage workers put up a tree and some nice decorations, and their families come hang out. Kate's son also comes by, and he's completely unfazed by his parents' divorce. We're not children of divorce so we can't really understand, but he's taking it really well? He seems really stable. Speaking of stable, he tells his mom on Christmas that he's dropping out of college to be a musician. Like what?? This may have been the second most horrifying part of this movie. And his mom is...not that upset about it? If we told our parents we were dropping out of college, we'd probably be dead right now.

At some point, Kate goes back to New York to get her life together or something, because she's basically been living abroad for like five months. She manages to convince her kid to major in music, oh and also the husband is back in the picture sort of? And then she finds out that the elephant orphanage lost funding because Chris Traeger's maybe-girlfriend represented a foundation that funded the orphanage and she pulled the funding because Chris Traeger didn't wanna hang out with her anymore and she's one-dimensional. Luckily Kate's rich and her friends are rich, so they write a few checks and they save the orphanage! Literally that's it. We expected more of an uphill climb, but hey, good that the orphanage was saved. Money buys happiness?

After saving the orphanage, Kate shows back up in Zambia at the restaurant where she and Chris first met and she's bought him a lobster dinner! Really brings it full circle. They get married and then we flash forward to the elephant they rescued together. It's time to say goodbye and let him go back into the wild. This part was a tearjerker. So beautiful ❤️

And then the movie ends! In general, we wouldn't really consider this a Christmas movie. It's a nice, feel-good movie for when you want to not think and feel sort of happy and look at cute animals, but this movie probably should've been called Saving Elephants or something. More elephants please! We can always use more elephant films (filmed responsibly of course).

So glorious and beautiful