Car Crash Theatre: Heaven Sent (2016)(Review)

Watching for the joy of mocking what’s on screen is an underrated pleasure. There’s a vast library of so-bad-it’s-good films out there, but I’m always on the lookout for more.

And so, the made for TV movie ‘Heaven Sent’ looked like it had a lot of promise. The premise is simple, and ridiculous. A little angel – literally a child angel – has come down from heaven to stop a couple who are on the verge of divorce from splitting up. The couple are Billy, played by Christian Kane, and Marie, portrayed by Marley Shelton. Older readers might recognise Kane as Lindsey from Buffy the Vampire Slayer spin-off Angel, and he also played Jacob in fantasy series The Librarians. I vaguely recalled Shelton as Hicks from Scream 4.

Both the leads do a decent enough job with what they have to work with. They are TV famous, so you’ll probably be, saying things like “Oh, he’s that bloke off that thing,” before looking up the cast on IMDB. Mallory James Mahoney plays the angelic runaway Taylor, providing a performance so sickeningly sweet that you may be reaching for the sickbag, complete with curly blonde hair and cutesy voice that makes her seem like she is competing in one of those weird American child beauty pageants.

Rounding out the cast are Ernie Hudson (Winston from Ghostbusters) and Ryan McPartlin (no relation to Ant, presumably). Ernie plays the bafflingly named Donatello, who is tasked with bringing in the diminutive divine escapee, helping her with a wink, a smile, and some suitably twinkly music. Why did they go with Donatello? Are they implying this guy is the renaissance sculptor (not the ninja turtle?) Was it just that it sounded suitably ‘angel like’? We need answers. McPartlin plays Sean, the generic other guy who is competing for Maire’s affections. He is exactly what you’d expect from a TV version of the characters James Marsden always used to play in the 90s and early 2000s; boringly handsome and nice enough to plausibly turn Marie’s head, but also buttoned up and dull enough to gently poke fun at.

The setting is that same generic New England small town that all these shmaltzy rom coms and quirky TV shows are set in, an idyllic place filled with quaint little bakeries, perfectly kept lawns and trees, and that gazebo thing that people kiss or propose under. It’s Christmas time (of course).

We don’t meet the little angel for the first 20 minutes, much of which is spent with divorce papers not being signed as they blow out of windows or get coffee spilt all over them and suchlike, accompanied by a cutesy magical sound effect, implying this is divine intervention.

Billy is described as an artistic idealist, but comes across as a grumpy liability, wandering aimlessly about in a beanie hat with a voice like he’s been smoking 50 a day since he was three. He spends much of the film trying to put up Christmas lights, to the point where I practically cheered when the job was finally done. Maire is presented as the level-headed businesswoman, which means she is permanently frowning in a pantsuit, until she inevitably relaxes at the end and (spoilers, I suppose,) has a baby, which is of course, the goal of all women everywhere(?).

I spent much of the first half trying to work out what the couple’s business was. The name ‘Poet’s Walk’ pops up, but poetry isn’t a big money spinner, and the two of them live in a small mansion that looks like it’s the same place from ‘Home Alone’. It’s eventually established that they make greetings cards, with Billy doing the art and Maire doing the, err, business stuff. But that doesn’t explain why two people live in a house that looks like it could comfortably house a small infantry battalion.

For a 90-minute film, there are times when it really drags. You can count the cliches – the Christmas-related business under threat (Marie is thinking about selling it to Sean), the big city corporate life bad, small town sentimentality good, the magical black guy helping the white protagonists, and so on and so forth.

Billy and Maire seem to have nothing in common, but of course the central premise is that their marriage must be saved by the poppet from the pearly gates, by whimsy, charm, and ‘mischief’, and so save it she does, after being repeatedly read A Christmas Carol, for some reason. One of the gimmicks is that only Billy and Marie can see the little angel, which explains why she doesn’t quickly enter social services or the television talk show circuit.

The message is hammered into your skull – divorce bad, marriage good, also, have kids, also god is real, also, Christianity is the thing. At the start of the film both Billy and Marie pray, one to keep their marriage, the other for it to end. I guess the guy in the sky likes incompatible couples staying together forever.

The twist, which you will almost certainly see coming a mile away, is (spoilers again, I guess) is that years ago Marie had a miscarriage, and the little angel is actually their daughter. If that’s not a cynical ploy to pull the heartstrings, then I don’t know what is. Taylor asks the couple if she can call them mummy and daddy early on, so it was either going to be miscarriage or infertility – I’m guessing they didn’t go for the latter as then they wouldn’t be able to feature the cutesy new baby at the end.

Turns out the miscarriage was why Billy and Maire threw themselves into work and that’s why they are having marriage trouble. Or something. Maybe god could have prevented the miscarriage? Whoops, sorry, I’m not supposed to ask questions like that am I.

As a ‘so bad it’s good’ this had a lot of promise, and while it doesn’t deliver the laugh out loud moments of other unintentional comedies, still has plenty to offer in terms of eye rolling. Worth a look. 

MATT’S ARCHIVE – HEAVEN SENT (2016)