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TV Movie Review - 3 Bed, 2 Bath, 1 Ghost
October 09, 2023
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I’m sure you’re already judging me and this movie, just by the title. Yes, it's a Hallmark movie (available on Peacock), and yes it has a silly name. But before you write it off as nonsense, hear me out because 3 Bed, 2 Bath, 1 Ghost had me giggling like a white girl experiencing her first taste of pumpkin spice. Which is only appropriate (okay, me giggling is never appropriate, I admit) because this is Hallmark’s first ever Halloween movie.

Do we have a new holiday movie genre?

The film opens in the roaring 20’s with beautiful cars pulling up to a stately mansion. It’s Ruby’s (Madeleine Arthur) birthday party, and she’s Charlestoning it up in style with her friends. Unfortunately, the man she loves, Charlie (Thomas Darya), isn’t invited. Ruby is a socialite, who hangs out with F. Scott and Zelda, and Charlie is a chauffeur. Though they share a once-in-a-lifetime (and maybe more than that) love, they’re from different classes and her father forbids them from being together. She breaks his heart as gently as she can, but Charlie leaves dejected, casting aside a bouquet of roses.

100 years later, the roses have grown into a large bush. But the house sits empty.

Or does it?

In present day, Anna (Julie Gonzalo) is filling the trunk of her classic Mustang convertible with odds and ends from her office. She and her partner, Elliot (Chris McNally), have dissolved their business relationship and their engagement. Anna is going into real estate with her dad, Garrett (Xavier Sotelo), while Elliot plans to continue restoring old buildings. He can never give up on lost causes. Like his relationship with Anna? Anyway, he and his amazing collection of jackets keep showing up, much to her dad’s displeasure. 

To start her off, Garrett gives Anna the Baker House—Ruby’s house— to lightly renovate, stage, and sell. And as Anna quickly learns, Ruby is having none of it. Sometime shortly after her party Ruby died a tragic death and her spirit remains trapped within its walls, doomed to read Gatsby for all eternity. But Anna can inexplicably see Ruby and they don’t exactly hit it off. Ruby can’t touch people, but she can tear open a feather pillow over a freshly waxed floor. 

There’s nothing spooky about this ghost story.

In no time, the two become friends. And as they do so, the rules of Ruby’s world start to bend and break. It’s their relationship that’s at the heart of this story, but the canny Ruby can see Anna and Elliot belong together and starts coaxing her to rekindle the relationship. And maybe, just maybe, if Anna can find true love Ruby can finally rest in peace. This is a Hallmark movie, after all, and you can probably figure out what happens next. That said, there is a clever little twist that brought a manly tear to my eye.

Best of all? No politics.

There was an easy opportunity to get into women’s lib, and there is a joke about there not being a woman president yet, but the movie skillfully avoids pursuing any social commentary beyond making fun of emojis and the way Anna is glued to her phone. Miss Arthur, with her big eyes and bobbed hair, looks like a silent film starlet and carries herself like a Ziegfeld girl in a way that never feels affected. Elliot sometimes seems a little passive-aggressive (mostly to facilitate the exposition), but McNally and his jackets carry enough good-guy charm that it’s easy to forgive. And Gonzalo takes what could be a cookie-cutter character and makes Anna feminine and sympathetic, never annoying.

So why was I laughing out loud?

I imagined I was playing a drinking game. Take a sip of your pumpkin spice latte (wink, wink) every time there’s something autumnal on screen so we don’t forget, every time Elliot shows up in a new jacket (seriously, the guy must have a house full of them), and every time fancy coffee gets mentioned. These things happen with such regularity you’ll be doing the Charleston with ghosts in your living room in no time.  

Please drink responsibly. 

This movie could have gone so terribly wrong in so many ways, yet its main fault is the silly title. There’s no politics, nothing occult, and it doesn’t lean too hard into the Halloweeness of it all. But let me be clear: I think 3 Bed, 2 Bath, 1 Ghost more for what it is than what it isn’t. It’s a sincere story about relationships and second chances. I’ll gladly watch it again next year, and if it ever hits DVD it might be the first Hallmark movie on my shelf. So judge me if you must. I don’t care.

I’ll be out there upping my jacket game.

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