Christmas ‘tis the season. The season for the cheap, disposable holiday tv-movies. Originally innovated by channels like Hallmark and Lifetime, the so-bad-it’s-good made-for-tv Christmas romance has become something of an annual tradition. So, it was only a matter of time before Netflix, master of the cheap and disposable, made a play for the crown, starting in 2017 with its first successful (and memeable) holiday romance, A Christmas Prince.
This year Netflix has four romantic Christmas offerings for us. Meet Me at Christmas, Hot Frosty, The Merry Gentleman, and Our Little Secret. So of course I needed to see how this year’s offerings stack up. Four Christmas Movies. Four Days. Join me as we descend into Christmas madness.
Monday: Meet Me Next Christmas
Meet Me Next Christmas was first on the list and might have the most convoluted set up of all four movies. Layla (Christina Milian) gets stuck at an airport one Christmas eve and meets handsome stranger James (Kofi Siriboe). They have a connection but Layla has a boyfriend. James says they should let fate decide, and if it’s meant to be they’ll meet at a Christmas eve concert next year. Fast-forward a year and Layla’s boyfriend cheats on her three days before Christmas. Taking it as a cue from fate, Layla resolves to meet James. The only problem? The concert is sold out and Pentatonix, an acapella group, is apparently the most popular band in the universe. So, Layla hires a private concierge, Teddy (Devale Ellis) (who she also met that night at the airport) and they go on hijinks-filled adventures through NYC, to get their hands on those tickets and maybe fall in love along the way. Whew. You still with me?
MMNC, feels the most like it’s trying to be a real Christmas movie, although you can often feel the film’s ambitions straining against its budget. Layla and Teddy run through a gauntlet of ticket scalpers, weird rich people, exclusive handbag drops, mimes, lip sync dance battles and Christmas concerts, but the movie may have been better off cutting a few of these set pieces and paying for a couple more takes as there are several lines reads and frames that just feel off. My main criticism was going to be how implausible it was that everyone (and I mean everyone) was obsessed with this Christmas themed acapella group, Pentatonix. However, it turns out Pentatonix is a real group, which opened a whole new can of worms all enthusing about how much they love Pentatonix. Is this sponcon?
If you can get past the part where it’s an ad for Pentatonix, MMNC does have an inescapable charm to it. The film plays loosely with ideas of fate and the signs, but it also builds a strong case for its main couple. It’s two people, growing to enjoy each other’s company via Christmas hijinks – at the end of the day that’s all you can ask for from a holiday romance.
Tuesday: Hot Frosty
Our second film, Hot Frosty, opens with the bold proclamation that it’s not like those other snowmen-coming-to-life movies. It then proceeds to spend an hour and a half failing to deliver on that claim. Apart from some slightly risqué scarf placement, Hot Frosty is cookie cutter holiday romance fare. When small-town diner owner and widow Cathy (Lacey Chabert) places a magic scarf on a surprisingly buff snowman (Dustin Milligan), she accidentally brings him to life. Still mourning her handyman husband and pointedly not fixing her heating, Cathy isn’t sure she’s ready for love but reluctantly opens her chilly home to Jack the snowman. Which is the perfect environment for him, because he’s in constant danger of melting if he gets too warm.
Netflix was calling in the big guns here with Lacey Chabert, a Hallmark staple with over 30 Hallmark TV movies to her name. Unfortunately, she’s given very little to do as the eminently sensible Cathy, who is a little too down to earth to be in a movie about shirtless snowmen. Dustin Milligan – practically an expert in being goofy but charming (see Schitt’s Creek, Rutherford Falls) is fun as Jack, although Milligan does appear to be taking his cues from Will Ferrell in Elf. With his chiselled abs and childlike wonder, Jack is something of a gender inverted version of the unnerving ‘born sexy yesterday’ trope which takes any ‘heat’ out of this romance.
Between its daft premise and ridiculous details (i.e. the town doctor is one of the first people to come on board with the idea of snowmen coming to life), Hot Frosty feels like the most traditional so-bad-it’s-good Netflix fun. However, it does introduce a bizarrely dark streak by drawing a parallel between a snowman who may melt any minute and Cathy’s husband who died of cancer. Never have I been emotionally blackmailed into rooting for the couple in a Netflix original movie because I didn’t want the lead to watch another man she loves die of a terminal illness. Even if that terminal illness is melting. So, points to Hot Frosty on that, I guess.
Wednesday – The Merry Gentleman
Maybe my brain was beginning to scramble at this point, but I was seeing a lot of similarities between Hot Frosty and The Merry Gentleman. Both films trade off a risqué element in their premise, but deep down are standard wholesome holiday fare. Small towns, home maintenance, shirtless men, diners and ugly Christmas jewellery with symbolic meaning also feature in both.
Britt Robertson stars as Ashley, a New York dancer fired from her Broadway show after 12 years. Coming home for Christmas for the first time in years, she finds her parent’s beloved bar The Rhythm Room in danger of closing, due to $30,000 in unpaid bills and a local landlord looking to sell to a juice franchise. Determined to raise the money she gets the idea to start an all-male revue show and recruits handsome local handyman Luke (Chad Michael Murray) as one of her stars.
Ten minutes into this movie my boyfriend turned and asked me why there is a backlog of repair bills when that is in fact the landlord’s job. Perhaps that’s why this movie has no real villain – the secret villain is the landlord taking these suckers for a ride. Still, it feels a little anticlimactic that once Ashley gets the ball rolling on her shirtless dance show, she faces almost zero challenges. At no point is it in doubt they’ll hit that 30k target. Robertson is a charming but contradictory lead; she may be a Broadway star but Robertson plays Ashley as your typical adorable small-town girl. While Luke labels her a diva, that appears to be entirely his own projection, which may be a purposeful writing choice given he has issues with ‘city girls’.
Which brings us to the most unfortunate part of TMG. The ‘girl gives up her big city career and dreams for a small-town boy’ is a staple of this genre and often feels regressive. TMG feels extremely regressive in this aspect. Despite having plenty of outs i.e Ashley transitioning from a big city dancer to small town director, wanting to spend more time with her beloved family who she’s barely seen in 12 years. But when Ashley is inevitably offered her job back the same night as the big Christmas show her decision seems to hinge entirely on Luke’s feelings. For a sweet movie, it leaves a bitter aftertaste.
Thursday – Our Little Secret
Our Little Secret felt like the longest movie, but I may have just been flagging at this point. In our fourth and final film, Avery (Lindsay Lohan) and Logan (Ian Harding) play former childhood friends-turned-lovers-turned-exs after Avery takes a job in London and rejects Logan’s very drunken proposal. Flash-forward ten years and Avery and Logan both show up to their new beaus’ homes for Christmas, only to discover that they’re dating siblings and trapped at the same family affair.
The two decide that their romantic past must be kept secret (for plot reasons) while Avery tries to win over her boyfriend’s demanding mother, played by a delightfully evil Kristin Chenoweth. OLS is technically a romance but it’s less cozy Christmas fare and more a standard meet-the-family comedy. There are the usual set pieces: misunderstandings, hidden secrets, a character getting accidently high and a dog in danger of bodily harm. OLS also feels a little glossier than the other entries on this list, and feels like it has the highest budget.
Ian Harding will be charming to some, but I couldn’t get past the feeling he was doing a Ryan Reynolds impression. Lindsey Lohan is still an excellent comedic actress, and it’s been nice to see her back in comedy films (although hopefully she’ll be able to escape Netflix sometime soon). Kristin Chenoweth’s nightmarish potential mother-in-law almost makes you wish they’d cut the ex-mas dynamic entirely and gone for a Monster in Law plot.
Final Rankings:
Best Couple:
Layla and Teddy hands down. Meet Me Next Christmas is the only film that builds a compelling case as to why our leads should be together. They have shared values, they bring out the best in each other, and they actually like being around one another.
Worst Couple:
Ashley and Luke, The Merry Gentleman. Ashley ruins her career for a guy she has minimal chemistry with and Luke never gets much deeper than having a chip on his shoulder about being left by ‘city girls’. He’s got zero thoughts on his partner’s wants and no comprehension of what a car crash a relationship would be if you have vastly different ambitions. Come on Luke, the Snowman had more introspection.
Best Ensemble: With Lindsay Lohan, Kristen Chenoweth, Tim Meadows, Judy Reyes and Henry Czerny – it’s Our Little Secret.
Best Bad Christmas Fun: Annual snowman competitions, inexplicably shredded snowmen, lonely diner owners and very clearly filmed on a studio lot? Hot Frosty.
Feels the most like a real movie: Our Little Secret which appears to have the highest budget.
Best Christmas Movie: Best Christmas movie? These are Netflix original holiday romances – go watch Home Alone!
Words by Louise Eve Leigh
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