Written by: Michael Musi & Madison Walsh
Starring: Kirsten Comerford, Matt Wells, Ai Barrett, Rachel Crawford, Diana Diaz
Rating: [2/5]
At the end of the day, the only thing we have in life are the values that define us. Nothing else gets at the core of the individual more than what they believe in and how much they elect to stick by it. These values flow into the business world all the time when individuals need to decide if profitability supersedes their principles, as seen on Christmas on the Alpaca Farm. Here the ethical dilemma comes from the push and pull of mass production and pureness of wool to a surprising degree.
After witnessing the pure callousness of the fashion world, Jess (Kirsten Comerford) decides to leave her New York City-based job to try and collaborate with Andrew (Matt Wells), who owns the Alpaca farm her former place of employment used for wool. She hopes to utilize his local wool to win a contest that will help launch something bigger and promises Andrew a much more ethical product.
In this episode of Christmas romance film, the big-city girl does not just come to a rural location but to an actual farm where she learns of the hard work that goes into producing the wool she takes for granted in her former big-city job. The man she learns all of this film happens to also be a principled single father who’s ready to open his heart to new love. Not necessarily breaking any new ground here, but at the very least Christmas on the Alpaca Farm commits to the idea of remaining principled in the business world, which proves difficult when looking to mass-produce.
When trying to convince the Andrew to collaborate in her design, Jess learns of one singular promise she must make, which is to never mix the wool with synthetics. Now, this gets done because mass production of sweaters cannot be sustained by a singular farm of maybe 6 alpacas at least for the purposes of this film, but in reality it drives cost down to not use 100% wool. Crafting a synthetic blend drives down costs, allows for more production of the item, and depending on the clientele, they will not care about the purity as long as it feels soft on their skin. This issue remains incredibly important throughout the film, and from the perspective of Andrew running his farm, you can see why. The journey, therefore, lands on Jess to recognize this importance, especially as we reach the conclusion.
Most of the humor this film seeks to deliver comes from the silliness of this big city girl trying to acclimate to working on a farm. She, of course, does not have the experience working with animals in this way and the hard work it takes to get the wool she uses for her designs. She, therefore, gets to labor, gain the trust of Andrew and flirt with him while his daughter giggles in the corner for the majority of the time. This can only happen for so long before the film begins to lose steam, which it does pretty quickly as we barrel towards the inevitable conflict that will arise when the idea of wool purity comes around.
Arriving at this point has the film making an interesting decision with its characters and who has the runway for flexibility where another remains unmoved in their stance. In a way it presents this unhealthy dynamic between the pair, which does not cause issues within the film itself in the relationship within this singular scope but spells doom for them in the long-run. Now, of course, this film does not care to focus on the long-term prospects of this couple, but Andrew sure remains principled in his stance even if it means shutting down a farm that has remained with his family for many years. It says a lot about the character where the film believes him to be very principled where, at a certain point, it puts all the growth on the protagonist and leaves Andrew as this perfect figure he’s surely not. I’m certainly not expecting a film like this one to interrogate this any further, but simply an observation.
Not much more needs to be said about Christmas on the Alpaca Farm, it follows the tried and true formula of this genre as it lays out the city girl and the country guy finding common ground with their romance. It surprisingly spends a lot of its time regarding the ethics and importance of using pure wool in products, and in this effort it somewhat undercuts the romance at the center of this film. Its adherence to its formula hinders it from diving any deeper, but that’s to be expected with these Christmas films, so I will not complain too much about it.
Films with Josh 
