The Nine Lives of Christmas

              Finally!  Someone has made a Christmas movie about cats.  Every year there is a bunch about dogs, but I can’t think of any that are about cats.  Usually they’re portrayed as the enemy or mean, which are terrible stereotypes.  It’s about time someone showed how great cats can be.            

                Firefighter Zachary Stone (Brandon Routh) would not call himself a cat person, but when he sees one being harassed by a dog, he feels compelled to save it.  Once he chases the dog away, Zachary thinks his time with the cat is over.  He does not expect it to follow him into his house.  When the cat does, Zachary agrees to let the cat stay there until he can reach its owner.  There is contact information on the cat’s collar as well as his name, Ambrose, but when Zachary reaches out, he finds Ambrose’s owner has died.  Not sure what else to do with Ambrose, Zachary decides to keep him until he can find a more suitable owner.

                There is just one problem with this plan.  While Zachary waits to find someone to take Ambrose, he has to figure out how to take care of a cat.  As he stands in the grocery store trying to decide on the best pet food, he meets Marilee (Kimberly Sustad), a veterinary student and pet shop employee.  She advises him on what the best food would be to feed Ambrose.  As they talk there is a clear connection, but neither one is looking for a relationship.  Marilee wants to finish her schooling first and Zachary doesn’t really believe in love.  Yet, despite their beliefs, fate somehow keeps bringing the two together.

                First Zachary and Marilee run into each other at a restaurant.  Both of them are trying to get away from the people they are dining with, and they end up getting some air at the same time in the same place.  Then they run into each other at Marilee’s place of work.  It turns out Zachary’s awful girlfriend, Blair (Chelsea Hobbs), is the daughter of Marilee’s boss.  Blair cannot stand Ambrose and she tries to force him on Marilee.  When Ambrose raises his paw at Blair she throws a fit declaring the cat dangerous.  Both Marilee and Zachary defend Ambrose but Blair won’t hear it.  She runs to her father and has Marilee fired for being “rude” to her.  Zachary doesn’t know this is what’s happening.  He takes Ambrose back from Marilee and leaves the store.  Not many days later he comes back to see Marilee and that is when he finds out what Blair has done.  Wanting to apologize, Zachary tries to get Marilee’s contact information out of her friend, but out of loyalty she will only give him Marilee’s last name.  With such little information, he’s going to have to find Marilee all on his own.

                When Zachary returns to his house, he finds Blair in his kitchen, and Ambrose missing.  He confronts her about what happened to Marilee, and when he sees how cold and uncaring she is about the situation as well as the missing Ambrose, he breaks up with her.  She leaves the house and Zachary goes in search of Ambrose.

                Even though Blair is no longer in the picture, Zachary still wants to find Marilee and apologize.  He doesn’t know how to find her, and Ambrose is still missing.  Nothing he tries to find either one is working out until Marilee shows up at the fire station all on her own.  She found Ambrose down the street and stopped by to return him.  Everyone is happy to see Ambrose since he has become the firehouse cat while coming to work with Zachary every day, but they’re really excited to finally see who this Marilee is.  When Zachary asks Marilee out to dinner, they’re thrilled to watch Ambrose for him and have huge grins on their faces as Zachary leaves with Marilee.

                Over dinner Zachary and Marilee get to know each other to the point that he shows up after her exam the next morning to ask how it went.  They go out for coffee together and everything is going well, but when they return to Marilee’s apartment, Marilee finds out her landlord has discovered Queenie, the cat Marilee is not supposed to have.  In violation of the rules, Marilee is evicted. 

                Still feeling bad about Marilee getting fired, Zachary offers to let Marilee and Queenie stay with him.  Even though she’s not fully sure, Marilee agrees to stay until she gets a new job and a place of her own that will accept cats.  Zachary isn’t really worried about how long Marilee stays.  He has the space and their two cats hit it off right away.  The friendship between him and Marilee quickly grows and he would probably have been happy to have her live in his house forever, if it weren’t for the fact that he was falling in love.

                Nervous over his feelings for Marilee, he rejects her offer to join her at a party.  He says he has to work, but Marilee ends up seeing him at the same party with another woman.  Upset, Marilee moves out the next day.  She had broken her rule about waiting until school was over to find love and has now gotten hurt because of it.  The best thing for her to do is leave and put herself at a distance until she can get over the feelings she has for Zachary.

                Distressed over Marilee’s abrupt departure, and his desire to not deal with his feelings, Zachary keeps calling Marilee to say how Ambrose and he miss her and Queenie, but she won’t answer the phone.  Not sure what else to do, he talks to his fire chief, Sam (Gregory Harrison), who knocks some sense into him.  Chief Sam tells Zachary how great love can be and that he should be with Marilee.  Zachary agrees, but the problem is he once again has to figure out how to find her.      

                This was a sweet movie from the start, but it became even better when Blair was out of the picture.  I was very happy when she hit the road, especially after she made Ambrose “disappear”.  Who does that kind of thing?  It was nice to see Zachary wake up over that and the Marilee incident.  Before that I wanted to shake him and ask what in the world he was thinking dealing with this girl.  Fortunately Marilee came along to show him what kind of woman he should really be looking for.

                Marilee was someone I really liked.  She wasn’t perfect, but she wasn’t a complete wreck either.  All too often in movies the female leads are one or the other.  Marilee was simply a person trying to follow her dreams.  She had put her life on hold to take care of her younger sister, and now she was trying to finish what she started.  Her intentions were always good and she never went out to hurt anyone.  Even when she left Zachary’s house, she didn’t throw a fit or make a big deal.  She just quietly left with a promise they would get the cats together after the new year.  It was a sad scene and I hoped that even if she and Zachary didn’t get together that she would end up happy.                                  

While The Nine Lives of Christmas is technically part of the Hallmark Channel’s Christmas movie lineup, I don’t really see it as a Christmas movie.  It’s more of a winter movie that has Christmas activities every once in awhile.  This movie was more about the relationship between Zachary and Marilee than anything having to do with Christmas.  Also this movie was about how cats can bring people together.  It’s not just dogs that can do this.  Cats can too.  I hope someone takes a note of this fact and makes more movies like this in the future.