Movie Review: Holiday gift shopping? How about “Something from Tiffany’s?”

As we enter another deluge of “holiday” streaming movies, I’d be remiss in not catching on a title or two I missed from assorted streaming services LAST holiday movie season.

“Something from Tiffany’s” comes with a Rotten Tomatoes critics seal of approval and stars She Who Rarely Does Wrong Zoey Deutch.

But it’s a not-remotely-funny/not-that romantic rom-com that just happens to be sprinkled with New York over the holidays tinsel.

Deutch stars as a Bryant Park baker who finds herself with somebody else’s engagement ring. So it’s a “wrong ring from the wrong guy” romance whose complications have to get that wrong ring into the wrong hands and onto the wrong finger, and for true love to bloom in the Big Apple’s loveliest season.

Rachel runs an Italian bakery and restaurant, a busy bee who is happily supportive of tattoo artist beau Gary (Ray Nicholson, you-know-who’s kid), who is always late and if she’s honest, a bit “self-involved.” But he’s “really trying,” she thinks. Hopes.

Gary has a lot of things to “make up for,” which has him thinking “one of those blue boxes (from Tiffany’s) might do the trick.” Earrings it is.

Ethan (Kendrick Sampson of TV’s “Insecure”) is a writer, UCLA college professor and widowed dad in town and in the store at the same time. But he and daughter Daisy (Leah Jeffries) are shopping for an engagement ring for gorgeous west coast publicist Vanessa (Shay Mitchell of “Pretty Little Liars”).

All it takes is for self-absorbed Gary to bump them as he’s leaving the store so that he can get hit by a car for the “little blue boxes” to be mixed up. All it takes is Daisy pestering her dad to see if the injured fellow “is all right” for them to go to the hospital. And that leaves the door open for Rachel to hear them questioning a nurse, realize these folks “helped” (not really, a cop was on the scene) Gary, and to try and reward their gesture with a visit to her restaurant.

Christmas Day means Christmas and “Christmakkuh” gift exhanges (Rachel is Jewish), with “some memory loss” Gary not realizing he’s just gotten himself engaged and didn’t mean it and poor Ethan handing over earrings that he expected to be a ring.

Hilarity, heartbreak and romantic complications ensue. Well, two out of three will have to do.

Deutch’s sparkle and quirky line readings make her credible in most any rom-com situation. We believe most any couple she’s cast in. But she’s swimming against the current here, as the story is painfully contrived and the wit is in short supply.

Jojo T. Gibbs plays the disapproves-of-Gary bakery employee and pal and comic relief.

“I also identify as her best friend.”

“Tiffany’s” has holiday music in the score, an aged street corner doo wop quartet that serenades our fated-to-be-together couple with “I Only Have Eyes for You,” Zoey Deutch and a cute kid.

The ingredients are here. But “Something from Tiffany’s” never feels more than half-baked.

Rating: PG, a little profanity

Cast: Zoey Deutch, Kendrick Sampson, Ray Nicholson, Leah Jeffries, Shay Mitchell and Jojo T. Gibbs.

Credits: Directed by Daryl Wein, scripted by Melissa Hill and Tamara Chestna. An Amazon Prime release.

Running time: 1:27

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About Roger Moore

Movie Critic, formerly with McClatchy-Tribune News Service, Orlando Sentinel, published in Spin Magazine, The World and now published here, Orlando Magazine, Autoweek Magazine
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