It may come as a surprise, being the manly man that I am, that one of my favourite films is from the Hallmark Channel. I discovered it while working as a teacher in Madrid, and Hallmark movies, which I had never experienced before, were playing regularly, and suddenly became very important to me, when my 'safe and secure' job at the school suddenly came to an end. I didn't know anybody in Madrid, and only spoke the language to a modest degree, so any English-language programming was a godsend.
Then, one day, a movie called THE NINE LIVES OF CHRISTMAS was advertised, starring Brandon Routh and Kimberley Sustad. I absolutely fell in love with this good-hearted and genuinely romantic movie. (Although I can't seem to find a Region 2 DVD for love nor money! Region 1 only.)
Sometime after, while searching very reluctantly for another teaching job, purely as a writing passion project, I wrote a treatment for a sequel, called THE NINE LIVES OF CHRISTMAS: ONE FINAL TAIL. (Not a typo. Cat reference!)
Most sequels really just exploit the original, but I wanted to write something that expanded on the world and the characters. Anyway, I enjoyed writing it, which is always a good sign. Please find the treatment for THE NINE LIVES OF CHRISTMAS: ONE FINAL TAIL below, and I urge fans of just straight-up, non cynical, feelgood films to check out the original.
Best wishes
Andrew Hawcroft
Ireland. 04/03/2019
THE NINE LIVES OF CHRISTMAS
- One Final Tail -
Treatment
Screen Story and Screenplay by Andrew Hawcroft
A sequel to the film; ‘The Nine Lives of Christmas’ written by Nancey Silvers. Based upon the novel by Sheila Roberts.
Things are going pretty darn great in the lives of Marilee White and Zachary Stone. Almost exactly one year has passed since they first met in the cat food aisle of their local market in Jamestown. Since then, they have officially moved in together, with Zachary deciding not to sell the now-beloved home they both helped to restore. Ambrose and Queenie are probably officially a catty couple too. They haven’t announced it as such, but then cats tend not to.
(Eg: In an opening scene; Marilee wakes up with a smile on her face. Notices the bed beside her is empty. Finds Zachary working out in their makeshift home gym. She watches happily for a moment before Zachary goads her into joining him in doing sit-ups. Still in her pyjamas, Marilee manages two good ones and half of a third, before Zachary gallantly steps in with a little assistance. Three done, that’s enough body beautiful for Marilee.)
Indeed, early on, Zachary ruminates how differently their lives might have turned out if he hadn’t rescued a certain cat from a barking dog on his property. If he hadn’t gone against his then-independent nature and taken Ambrose in.....and quickly formed an attachment to him..... he might never have met Marilee the way he did.
Marilee herself is preoccupied with the opening of Ambrose House, her very own veterinary surgery, situated not far from her old workplace; Bosley’s Pet Supply Store.
It’s a testing time. The bank loan has covered the basics, but she is running the place solo, apart from her best friend, Sarah, who is now her receptionist. She cannot even afford building insurance until the place starts making money, and is operating on a shoestring budget.
Opening day comes, and that budget stretches to precisely one party popper and two plastic glasses of the world’s finest, cheapest champagne. The kind that comes from New Jersey. From that point on, it’s Worry City.
Meanwhile, Zachary, having overcome his childhood-related insecurities about serious relationships, is blissfully happy; to the point that his three friends at the fire station....Fire Chief Sam, Mark and Ray....shamelessly make good-natured fun of him about his failure to propose to her. They have taken to writing the words ‘ASK HER!’ in all sorts of places around the fire station, including messages left in the pockets of his uniform, writing it on the walls in safety foam, writing it in his food....
Little do they know that Zachary does intend to propose. He takes the step of going to a jewellers and buying an engagement ring...a rather gaudy and flashy one...that costs an enormous amount of money for a fire-fighter’s salary. Zachary bites the bullet and buys it nonetheless, despite the store reminding him they do not do refunds.
He plans to propose to her over dinner that night, marking the anniversary of their first meeting, with a small wedding planned for Christmas Day. It is to be ordained by a local minister, and is to take place at their favourite location; a quiet, enclosed park that contains a beautiful fountain featuring the sculpture of a mermaid. Marilee has confessed that after her parents died, she spent many hours sitting there, taking solace from the freedom and passion expressed in the mermaid’s pose, wondering what her life would hold...and perhaps wishing for what it finally did.
The wheels begin to fall off this train to Eternal Bliss when, moments after sitting down to the afore-mentioned meal, the doorbell rings.
Zachary’s parents, Nora and Arthur, still somehow together after decades of marital disharmony, have shown up unexpectedly while travelling through the area. They are interested in meeting the girl that seems to have changed their son so thoroughly.
It all goes downhill from there. Despite Marilee’s best efforts to set a positive mood, the Stones are as comfortable together as a sparking power cable and a puddle of petroleum. Seeing the initial happiness of Zachary and Marilee seems to antagonise something un-noble in their characters, and they begin to paint a picture of marriage that could feature in a Stephen King novel.
After they leave, Zachary loses his nerve about proposing, as his old insecurities begin to rise again.
Marilee accidentally lets it slip how tight things are financially for her at Ambrose House, and Zachary, most of his own savings having gone on the non-returnable ring, is angry with himself for not being able to help her.
Things don’t improve with the return of Blair, former professional model and former beau of Zachary. She is going through her own troubles, having been told more than once lately that she is getting too old for modelling. Having nothing else to fall back on, she has started to reluctantly manage her retired father’s pet store, drinking heavily. This only fuels her resentment of the happiness that Zachary and Marilee have found, both of whom she sees too often for comfort from her store.
Ambrose House, however, is starting to pick up. Marilee is particularly popular with the kids, often using a hand puppet called Santa Paws to put nervous young pet owners’ at ease.
One regular is Mrs Smith, owner of somehow-still-alive Bootsy, plus Flotsam and Jetsam, Lancelot, Parkins, and numerous other dogs. Mrs Smith is very rich, and is regarded as a bit of a joke by other people in Jamestown. During one conversation, however, she lets down her guard enough to tell Marilee some of her own horrifying and tragic history....and her love for dogs becomes more understandable.
Marilee herself is finding true joy in her work, blissfully unaware of Zachary’s aborted proposal, although The Question has been playing on her mind for some time.
But...she reasons...who says the man has to do the asking? It’s 2019 after all!
On an impulse, she decides to ask Zachary to marry her that very day. She has not the money for an engagement ring of her own, but Mrs Smith, from whom Marilee cannot keep the idea, comes to the rescue. She gives Marilee her own engagement ring, a truly beautiful thing. Marilee is stunned at this generosity, and at first refuses it, but Mrs Smith says it is merely karma. Marilee has always been good to her while others laughed at her behind her back, (she may be old but she’s no fool,) and she can think of no better home for it than on the hand of the only person in Jamestown who has shown any affection to her.
During the same day, however, just to pull the final plug on Cupid’s vital signs, Zachary’s parents show up again, and Zachary has a tremendous fight with them, letting rip about what it was like growing up with them arguing every time they breathed, and how hard he has worked to not become like them. He tells them he never wants to see or hear from them again. Devastated, for Zachary was really the only thing they had to be proud of from their decades together, the Stones leave, and Zachary is left in shock, but determined to hide it from Marilee.
He goes to visit her at Ambrose House, where Marilee’s sudden proposal of marriage comes at the worst possible time. When faced with it, Zachary cannot say yes, leaving Marilee shocked, humiliated, and wondering what their future holds. Her own insecurities about being alone, which have been with her since her sister got married, come back in full force. A distraught Marilee puts Mrs Smith’s engagement ring in a drawer.
About this time, a face from the past re-enters Marilee’s life. John Day, Marilee’s teenage boyfriend, arrives in Jamestown, having finally left the Marines, where he attained the rank of Staff Sergeant. He confesses that although he has no regrets, there is a point where a man stops wanting to take and give orders, and to just live his own life. Over coffee, Marilee confesses most of her attraction for him as a teenager was because of his love of animals and helping people in general. John confesses that in joining the Marines, he thought he was still helping people, but after the things he has seen, he has had enough. He wants to do things his way now.
Marilee is immensely proud of her old flame, and impressed by his resolve to take charge of his life, but Zachary feels the first pangs of jealousy, which are thoroughly and deliberately stirred by Blair, who has caught onto all this. She sees John Day as her way back into Zachary’s life, ridiculous though this may seem.
Zachary and Marilee struggle to keep their relationship on track. Zachary wants them to stay just the way they are, living together with no commitments, just taking life as it comes, free and easy. Marilee, however, is finding it difficult to get past his rejection of her, and Blair continues to make machinations to drive the pair apart...with some success.
These ‘war games’ against the couple reach their apex when Blair fakes an intimate encounter between John and Marilee, and Zachary moves out, heartbroken, despite Marilee’s pleas of innocence.
That is when the impossible happens, and sitting by their once-beloved fountain, Zachary is approached by his father, who has tracked him down. Arthur, for the first time perhaps in his life, has taken a good hard look at himself, and makes a heartfelt apology to his son. He tells him that Nora and he are together, not because of love, but because they were too weak as people to be alone. That’s not love. That’s dependency. But in his son, he sees a man who is stronger than him, whose very career puts other people above his own needs. He sees someone who is better than him in all respects, and even a jaded cynic like himself can see what Zachary and Marilee have is special.
In that moment, Zachary realises he doesn’t care what Marilee may or may not have done. He wants her in his life.
He leaves to tell her so, but unfortunately runs into a drunken Blair on the way home, and tells her he is going to marry Marilee as planned, that he loves her and that’s the end of it.
Blair realises she has lost, or that she simply never had a chance to begin with, and in a drunken rage, throws a flaming bottle of spirits through the window of Ambrose House. In seconds, the building is ablaze, and Blair becomes horrified at what she has done.
Back at their home, Zachary rushes to tell Marilee how he doesn’t care what the truth is, and that he loves her no matter what. This is not good enough for Marilee, who, still battling her own insecurities, insists that he should know her well enough to know she could never have done such a thing.
The next moment, however, Zachary gets the call that Ambrose House is on fire. He rushes over there, knowing that the building is not insured and that he has to save it if he can.
Alongside Sam, Mark and Ray, he tackles the blaze as best he can, but it’s too advanced. Against the advice of Sam, Zachary enters the flaming building to retrieve Mrs Smith’s engagement ring from the drawer, when part of the ceiling collapses on him, and, just as when he was a child, Sam saves his life.
For a time, Zachary’s life hangs in the balance, as he lies comatose in a hospital bed.
In the waiting room, a tearful Marilee is counselled by Sam. He tells her how much Zachary has changed because of knowing her, but how change still needs time, and Zachary is still learning, despite having come so far. It is here that Marilee realises how much her own fears have played a part in her behaviour. Recalling Mrs Smith’s tragic back-story, she also realises how much she has taken good things for granted lately. She talks about how from the moment you wake up beside your loved one, every minute after that is a gift. And when you close your eyes at night, you say ‘Thank You’, because you got to spend another day with the one you love.
Ambrose House is a smoking ruin, and not insured, but Marilee hardly cares. Sam tells her to go home and get some rest.
Zachary finally wakes up in hospital to find a tearful Blair there. She confesses it was she who started the fire, and has confessed all to the police. After being detained, her father paid her bail, but her court date is fast approaching. She pours out a heartfelt confession of all her feelings of envy of his and Marilee’s happiness, how modelling had defined her until she couldn’t get work anymore, and finally, she confesses it was she who faked the relationship between John and Marilee. She has told Marilee everything.
Perhaps surprisingly, Zachary understands. He says he realises how lucky he is to have found Marilee, how his own demons made him do and think crazy things, and how sorry he is that Blair hasn’t found that someone who could rescue her from herself. Her confession, along with his own father’s apology, have woken Zachary up to what matters, and to what has been going on inside him. He promises to speak on her behalf in court.
Sometime later, Sam enters and gives him Mrs Smith’s engagement ring, which they found in his uniform. Little more needs to be said, and he soon leaves....
.....allowing Marilee to enter. The two barely exchange a word, just holding each other’s hands. Silently, Zachary places the engagement ring on her finger. Marilee just nods and kisses him.
On Christmas Day, Jamestown is abuzz, but no place more so than the little park with the fountain, where Marilee and Zachary, their friends and family around them, are officially married.
Out of the blue, Mrs Smith, who has been invited, shocks the couple to their core with a ‘wedding present’ of a blank cheque to open another Ambrose House.
Sam quietly tells Zachary that he had wanted to wait until Zachary was stronger before telling him, but his rescue of Zachary from the burning building was his last, and a fitting one to end on. He has decided to retire, and wants Zachary to be the new Fire Chief. When an astonished Zachary accepts, Sam gives him a small wrapped box, containing his own set of keys to the station.
Finally free from doubts and fears, Zachary and Marilee kiss one more time under the kindly gaze of the mermaid in the fountain.
THE END
