I Did This on Purpose: “Undercover Christmas”

Last night my friend Amy and I watched a 2003 Lifetime Original Christmas Movie called Undercover Christmas, starring Jami Gertz (and featuring Tyne Daly!) and it was so good, you guys. Jami Gertz plays a cocktail waitress who is going to testify against her Bernie Madoff son-esque boyfriend (although I just realized that this movie actually precedes Bernie Madoff as a news story, so way to be prescient, Undercover Christmas) and so an FBI agent takes her home for protection over Christmas and for some reason they don’t tell his parents the truth and just pretend that they’re dating. And Tyne Daly is at first all “I won’t stand for this; I’m rich!” but she quickly falls for Jami Gertz’s straight-talking charms. There are a lot of things I want to mention, like a breakfast scene in which seven people are sharing a giant platter of pancakes, a giant platter of French toast, a giant platter of fried eggs, and an entire ham (I guess because they’re rich?), AND the fact that the movie’s emotional subplot is that the FBI agent’s father is not proud of his son because he’s working such a shitty job (?), but most importantly, you should know that there’s a shopping montage because Jami Gertz can’t wear her usual shit to this family’s annual Christmas party, and she rejects Tyne Daly’s initial choices but then they come to a compromise, and the compromise is revealed as she walks down some steps into a wind machine, apparently, and it’s this: 

And the FBI agent has obviously never found her more beautiful. So if you like movies in which the subtle emotional shifts in human relationships are the result of seeing someone wear an ill-fitting one-sleeved dress in a strong breeze, Undercover Christmas is for you. Eight stars.