Trading in Louboutins for Timberlands

What is it about nature and small towns that connote morals, values and soul?

For whatever reason (okay, Kristin Chenoweth and some men-folk), I scheduled my DVR to record 12 Men of Christmas, a Lifetime Movie Network original, a few weeks ago. And last night, I finally got around to watching (the beginning of) it.

The premise is not new. Kristin plays a tough-as-nails, crazy-ambitious, sophisticated executive of some sort in New York City. New York, as depicted in this movie, represents a lifestyle that affords you an unusually enormous kitchen, a spacious apartment, beautiful shoes and clothing, but a morally ambiguous fiance. It also represents spending Christmas alone on the couch, watching movies from a simpler time while eating a tub of Chinese food with one's dog. Clearly, New York means unhappiness.

Lo and behold! Kristin trades in her fast-paced lifestyle for a new career in a simple Montana town. It's a quaint town which - gasp! - doesn't have a Starbucks, Kinko's or Gap within a 10-mile radius! Kristin struggles to adapt, her six-inch heels sinking into the mud as she makes her way around a local bake sale in support of a search-and-rescue squad that's in dire need of money (although it has an abundance of handsome, well-physiqued men).

I haven't finished the movie, but I assume Kristin comes to appreciate a simpler lifestyle and finds love with the particularly handsome, but irascible gentleman on the search-and-rescue squad. I presume it's the same theme as Meet the Morgans, New in Town and a million other movies that have filled Lifetime's prime time schedule.

I get the appeal of this trope, but I question it's core premise: that you can't have a fulfilling lifestyle if you're a city-dweller. I'm obviously biased, but I do feel like I've made real, human connections in the city and I have a feeling I might go crazy if I were surrounded by the simple dolts these movies portray as native to small-town America.

In any case, it's great to see Anna Chlumsky getting work these days.