'Candy Cane Candidate': 5 things to know about Lifetime's Christmas movie

'Candy Cane Candidate' sees Julia (Jacky Lai) trying to drown her sorrows after her recent political campaign was a disaster
UPDATED DEC 22, 2021
Official poster for 'Candy Cane Candidate' (Lifetime)
Official poster for 'Candy Cane Candidate' (Lifetime)

Christmas is all about spreading happiness to everyone and this year, people will be doing their best to make this festival special for themselves. It’s been a while that people have gotten together to celebrate a festival and with Covid-19 cases rising up again, it seems people would have to sit inside their houses once again for celebrations. So, if you are one of those who are planning to spend the festival inside your house with your loved ones, then you should switch on your televisions and tune in to Lifetime to watch your favorite Christmas movies.

The network is known for producing heartwarming Christmas movies and this year, it’s no different. One movie that is on everybody’s watchlist is ‘Candy Cane Candidate’. Even the name of the movie is so interesting that viewers would definitely want to see the flick. The story revolves around a woman named Julia (Jacky Lai) who has returned to her hometown for Christmas after garnering a landslide loss in the recent elections. She is home to drown her sorrows as her hometown gears up for celebrations. Will she be able to find herself someone that would make her forget everything bad in her life? This burning question will be answered in the Lifetime movie.

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The movie looks really interesting and will nab all the eyeballs. Earlier, on Sunday, a movie titled ‘Mistletoe in Montana’ received positive reviews from across the nation, and the upcoming movie will also be hoping for a similar kind of reaction.

Here’s everything we know about the upcoming film.

Jacky Lai as Julia in 'Candy Cane Candidate' (Lifetime)

When does ‘Candy Cane Candidate’ release and where can you watch it

The upcoming Christmas movie will be premiering exclusively on Lifetime on Monday, December 20. According to the network, viewers will be able to see the movie at 8 pm EST. Lifetime is also available on Hulu, Sling TV, Philo, Vidgo, Frndly TV, and DIRECTV STREAM. If you are based out of the US, then you would need a VPN to watch the movie.

What is ‘Candy Cane Christmas’ all about

The Official synopsis reads, “Natural-born leader, Julia (Jacky Lai), returns to her hometown of North Falls for Christmas to drown her sorrows in eggnog, cookies, and Yuletide after her recent political campaign for city council ended in a landslide loss. It’s the perfect place for Julia’s holiday escape—until she realizes coming home means running into her old high school rival, Parker (Jake Epstein), the arrogant know-it-all who beat her in a race for senior class president. When the North Falls mayor resigns, the town holds an emergency election, and Julia and Parker find themselves once again facing off. But as Julia and Parker campaign their way through the Christmas season and plan a toy drive together, Julia begins to see a different side of Parker, and the ice between them slowly begins to thaw. As their political race comes to a head, Julia and Parker discover winning isn’t everything.”

Who stars in the upcoming Lifetime Christmas movie?

The film will see Jacky Lai playing the lead role of Julia while Jake Epstein will be portraying the character of Parker. On the other hand, Kara Duncan will be seen playing the role of Lucy in the movie.

Jacky Lai

The actress broke the barriers and came into the limelight when it was announced that she will be the first Asian-American star to lead a Lifetime movie. However, she has a good body of work prior to that achievement as well. Her acting debut came in 2011 with the TV series ‘Really Me’ and went on to have short roles on ‘The Flash’ and ‘Once Upon a Time’. Lai’s first major acting role came in 2017 with the TV series ‘Beyond’ in which she was cast as Riley. 2019 turned out to be a massive year for her as she gave back-to-back hits with ‘Shadowhunters’ and ‘V-Wars’.



 

Lifetime’s ‘A Sugar and Spice Holiday’ was an instant success and made her a household name. She was recently seen in one of the episodes of ‘Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist’.

Other actors in the movie include Stephanie Herrera as Mayor Rodriguez, Jinny Wong as Stella, Mickey Nguyen as Jax, and Edwina Renout as Sylvie.

Creators

The movie has been directed by Pat Kiely while the screenplay is penned by Melissa Bustamante. Shane Boucher and Caitlin Delaney are the producers of the movie.
Meanwhile, Megan Ellstrom, Larry Grimaldi, Hannah Pillemer, Fernando Szew and Anna Zipursky serve as executive producers.

Trailer

Lifetime has not released any trailer for the movie. We will update the space once a clip is released.

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