This film has two titles. "Holly's Holiday", and "A Perfect Christmas". Paradoxically, each title is ironic (actually meaning the opposite), and yet also literally correct. The film is about Holly's "holidays" or seasonal experiences, and these experiences are a kind of holiday (actually a dream, but I'm getting ahead of myself). Equally, the film is about a "perfect" version of Christmas, but that is actually far from being an ideal Christmas, or even a real Christmas.
The film begins with Christmas music and close-up shots of shop-window mannequins, and a reindeer, being assembled and dressed in a store's Christmas display. Then we cut to a shot of a young woman, Holly, hurrying past a group of street carollers, in Dickensian costume, getting to her New York job in an advertising company. We meet Holly's mild-mannered younger personal assistant, her eager-beaver African American supervisor, her grumpy boss, and others in the firm.
Holly is suddenly told to develop a new advertising campaign for a new client - jewellers. She starts thinking of all the perfect romantic moments (perfect kiss, proposal, marriage, ...) when jewellery (engagement rings, and so on) may feature, arguing that men and women aspire to such moments of perfection. Her close colleague and camera man, Milo, argues that such perfection can only be glimpsed as moments within the complicated messy reality of human relationships. Holly pauses, in a street, to admire a handsome window-mannequin.
Later, hurrying to get to work, pushing past some costumed street carollers, Holly trips, falls, blacks out, and as she wakes up again, lying on the sidewalk ... she sees that the person coming to her aid is a human version of the handsome store-window mannequin she had been admiring. Here is her "perfect" man and the "perfect" first meeting. She feels she has seen him before. He explain s that he works nearby, and he has often watched her going past in the street. (Often, what Beau says is literally true, for a store-window mannequin, but seems to mean something else.)
Incidentally, we know, almost as soon as Beau/Bo appears that the handsome store-window mannequin is no longer in the store-window. Moreover, his glamorous store-window partner now stares alone out into the street, seemingly waiting for something ...
Much, much later, we eventually find that most of the story we see from this point, with the handsome perfect man, Bo (according to someone's typing in IMDB, or should that actually be "Beau"?), and his ridiculously "perfect" parents, has been Holly's black-out dream while she has been recovering in hospital from her fall and concussion.
The story continues for most of the film, with Holly and Beau/Bo becoming romantically involved. Step by step, Beau seems to be "perfect". But step by step Holly starts to see that "perfect" is not really something she wants, or needs.
As noted, along the way, frequently the lines spoken by Beau (or Bo) have a double-meaning, with one of the meanings referring to his "life" or "working life" as a store-window mannequin, while the other meaning sounds quite different - clever! For example, Beau/Bo asks Holly what she does, and she says she works in advertising. "I love advertising!" enthuses Bo. Then when Holly asks Bo/Beau what he does, he replies, "I was in retail."
Later we are introduced to Beau's parents, who are, we realise, also store-window models, but modelling older styles of clothing, although now they don't work so much, they say. Beau encourages them to show Holly some of their best positions. One position after another they show how they stand together (as a couple of dressed-up store-window mannequins) for Presidents' Day, for Hallowe'en, for Easter, or whatever the calendar/sales event. Amusingly, all the poses are the same, although the couple behave as though the poses are different. "Zoolander" strikes again! Very funny!
But before the plot-twisting revelation near the end of the story, we see Bo/Beau becoming increasingly domineering, insisting he knows what Holly really wants and what is good for her.
Much later, as Holly and Bo/Beau share more time together, and Holly struggles with the new advertising campaign, the female mannequin also comes to life. "Who is she?" asks Holly. "My ex," explains Bo. The jealous mannequin-woman totally disrupts a tacky photo-shoot for the campaign. Just when things seem to have gone as horribly wrong as they possibly could, and the photo shoot is a disaster, and Holly will maybe even lose her job, Holly rebels, and dumps Bo. Realising that Milo had been right all along, that real life, and real love is often complicated, messy, even sloppy (like a first kiss), Holly runs desperately to catch up with Milo who thinks he has been discarded, and suddenly as she is running Holly trips, and blacks-out and ... wakes up in hospital where she had REALLY been taken immediately after the first tripping. (Milo has pretended to be her husband so he could stay in the hospital to care for Holly. Sweet!)
Happily, the film then ties up the loose ends, and Holly accepts that "perfect" is a misguided aspiration. And the photo-shoot is redeemed, and the advertising campaign is a huge success!
Incidentally, the story is set NEAR Christmas, but it is not really a film with a properly developed Christmas theme.
The film is often very funny, and realistically and fantastically romantic, and sentimentally touching. (The use of Christmas carols as background music is also good.)
