CANDY CANE LANE: A MYSTICAL AND MAGICAL CHRISTMAS

The movie “Candy Cane Lane”, is a 2023 American Christmas comedy film directed by Reginald Hudlin and written by Kelly Younger. The film stars Eddie Murphy, Tracee Ellis Ross, Jillian Bell, Thaddeus J. Mixon, Ken Marino, Trevante Rhodes, David Alan Grier, and Nick Offerman.

It opens on the first scene, when Chris Carver crafts his own hand-carved decorations for the local neighbourhood Christmas decoration competition but has never won, making him jealous of his neighbour who repeatedly wins with inflatable dolls. Shortly before Christmas, he is laid off from work, leading to him desperately competing for the Christmas contest new-found prize of $100,000.

Looking for supplies, Chris and his daughter stumble across a mysterious Christmas shop filled with beautiful decorations and figurines. When presented with the receipt, a hesitating Chris is urged to sign it by shopkeeper Pepper without reading the fine print, upsetting the seemingly alive figurines. Using the new decoration, the family impresses at the competition.

The next day, the decorations are gone, seemingly having turned into live animals. Chris, however, blames the neighbours. Upon returning to the shop, they learn that “Pepper”, is an evil Christmas elf that has tricked him into a Faustian bargain. Her victims are transformed into living figurines that inhabit her store. They are being told that they have to find five golden rings held by their missing decorations, now alive, or else Chris will turn into a figurine as well. They rescue the figurines, who offer to help them find the rings and defeat Pepper.

At a track meeting where Joy competes, Pepper has the remaining decorations attack the family. The entire family is subsequently fighting to retrieve the decorations, nonetheless they manage to retrieve four of the five rings. With the help of the figurines, they realize Pepper has the last ring and manage to lure her into a trap, collecting the last ring.

When Chris presents the five rings to Pepper, she claims he actually had to collect 40 rings. With the help of Santa Claus, the figurines, and their neighbours, they retrieve most of the rings but Pepper has cheated by turning the clock forward five minutes, which turns Chris into a glass figurine prematurely. Having only 38 rings, Santa reminds them that their weddings rings are also golden, bringing the total number up to 40, breaking the curse. Santa also helps the other figurines to return to human form and allows Pepper to return to his workshop, where he turns her into a figurine as punishment. Chris now is the new owner of Pepper’s shop and it is revealed that he finally won the competition; however, the prize turned out to be $100,000 in Taco coupons.

The movie celebrates themes in the season of Christmas, family, love and many other themes. The movie “Candy Cane Lane” was released by Amazon Prime Video on December 1st, 2023.

Delia Nyadi.