New weekend theatre: An Elephant in the Gardenby Randi / April 2, 2021This past Easter Sunday, the National Theatre and Sky Arts teamed up to present a truly relevant theatrical film for the holiday: Romeo & Juliet. Not super relevant you say? Tell me to my face that Juliet and Jesus didn’t have the same journey. Seemed like they died for a few days but then they woke up??? CHECK. Too much faith in other people to not be stupid? FORKING CHECK.
The event was a made-for-TV film version of the Shakespeare play, so really covering all bases of entertainment. There was also a scene that was very reminiscent of the nightclubs in East London, my absolutely nightmare but, you know, something for everyone. This take felt new and energetic and modern, at once both a movie and a stage show. Some changes worked well, although no clever decisions in any version have yet to justify the absolute inanity of how f-ing stupid the whole plan was. Goddammit Friar, you’re as simple as these overly dramatic teenagers. (I wasn’t going to mention how Juliet is 13 as written but I simply must. What a gross play.) Can’t believe we’ve had 400 years of this moronic plan. People like to shit on Shakespeare in Love but that’s honestly the only thing that redeems this play even a little. (I’m talking classic representations here, not stuff like West Side Story which is undeniably a genius improvement. (And the musical & Juliet doesn’t count because it rightly says a big ‘hell no’ to the play after like 3 pages.))
As the two ill-fated idiots, Josh O’Connor and Jessie Buckley put their screen experience (him The Crown, her movies and stuff) to good use, though I was surprised that his Romeo was far stronger than her Juliet, since I usually really like her while I have never watched The Crown out of support for Meghan and Harry (just kidding it seems boring). R&J puts you in such a predicament, because you don’t want to cast very young people because THAT’S GROSS, but the plot only really makes sense if they are very young/stupid people. I mean, they meet at a party and get married like within 24 hours? Who do they think they are, Dharma and Greg? And then instead of telling anyone so she doesn’t have to marry Paris (didn’t husbands immediately have ownership over their wives back then? like what could her parents have done at this point?), instead she and the Friar concoct the ferkakte plan of faking her death and having Romeo rescue her from a mausoleum in secret. WOOF.
So yes while the actual play always makes me throw up my hands and shout incomprehensibles, this version made some welcome creative decisions that I appreciated. I liked that it was clearly a stage-version despite being a film, although I thought the rehearsal-room footage was too inconsistent and took me outside the story. I wanted a whole lot more of Fisayo Akinade’s Mercutio, who is equally captivating onscreen as he is onstage (we stan a short king!). I loved that they made his relationship with Benvolio a romantic one, but his screentime was definitely a victim of the hatchet job of cutting this play down to 1 1/2 hours. Ben Affleck would have been PISSED.
The pacing was interesting, as it moved so fast, which I mostly liked, but with that you miss out on the ability to foster depth, character development, and emotional connection. It could have benefited from another 20 minutes or so to make any of the characters, connections, or actions more truly felt. (This may be the first time I’ve said something could have been longer and not shorter.) I saw SO MANY REVIEWERS saying how ‘pacey’ this show was. Ugh. You mean like Joshua Jackson? You mean fast-paced. There’s a word for that and it’s fast-paced, or quick. When Romeo & Juliet clocks in at like 90 minutes, you can just say that. Petition to ban “pacey” and “stagey” please. (While we’re at it: add noms to the list if it’s about anything other than nominations. And if everyone could move on from the adverb du month of ‘deeply’, we will all be for the better.))
No matter the various weaknesses, which did exist despite…everyone else’s commentary, this version stood out for one strong reason: Tamsin Grieg. (Okay, two strong reasons: Tamsin plus her early scenes architectural sweater, doing more character work than NYC in “Sex and the City”.) My favorite move of this production was switching Lord and Lady Capulet’s roles, so that Lady was the one with all the juicy parts and Lord was the one who showed up for like a second and grunted and left. Tamsin’s Lady Capulet with all the power of the og Lord was FIRE. My god. There is a reason she is such a celebrated actress and it is all on display here. Whereas Lord Capulet is sometimes argued to be a good father, doing what he needs to for his family in this era, Tamsin’s version is harsher. She is a cruel old broad in an amazing sweater and I am HERE FOR IT. Nothing in this production was more convincing than her authoritative take on what she needed to do for her daughter and her family and even though she was mean I almost wanted everyone to listen to her. I can’t wait to see her Lear.
Romeo & Juliet aired on Sunday on Sky Arts. It will re-air Thursday, April 8 at 10pm, and then Friday, April 23 at 9pm on PBS (that’s for you AMERICANOS).
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“Spongebob Squarepants” on Broadway: Tons of Fun but Ultimately for Kids
It’s Theatre Thursday! I saw “Spongebob” on Broadway and we’re gonna talk about it! It closes September 16.
He’s says he’s ‘not a simple sponge’…but he kind of is. And although fans of this season’s new Broadway musical “Spongebob Squarepants” will say that people of all ages can enjoy the show (and that’s true, they will), it was created for kids and that’s who it’s geared towards and that’s who I am and that’s who I care about. Okay not the last two bits I got carried away. “Spongebob” the musical is a lot of fun, and a technical marvel, but it’s a bit of a letdown for adults. And considering adults have to accompany the screaming children (yes they did scream) to the theatre and buy at least two tickets, the profit-making model for this show doesn’t really work. Unlike Disney shows from the past, the adults aren’t given equal consideration here, and so few adults will be present without children (I think my sister-in-law and I were the only unaccompanied adults when we saw it). And while it’s very sad news, I’m not surprised that the show just announced that it will be closing in September, because it takes a lot of rich people to decide to spend $100+ on taking their kids to see this when they’ve been watching the TV show for free for years.
He’s says he’s ‘not a simple sponge’…but he kind of is. And although fans of this season’s new Broadway musical “Spongebob Squarepants” will say that people of all ages can enjoy the show (and that’s true, they will), it was created for kids and that’s who it’s geared towards and that’s who I am and that’s who I care about. Okay not the last two bits I got carried away. “Spongebob” the musical is a lot of fun, and a technical marvel, but it’s a bit of a letdown for adults. And considering adults have to accompany the screaming children (yes they did scream) to the theatre and buy at least two tickets, the profit-making model for this show doesn’t really work. Unlike Disney shows from the past, the adults aren’t given equal consideration here, and so few adults will be present without children (I think my sister-in-law and I were the only unaccompanied adults when we saw it). And while it’s very sad news, I’m not surprised that the show just announced that it will be closing in September, because it takes a lot of rich people to decide to spend $100+ on taking their kids to see this when they’ve been watching the TV show for free for years.
But even so, if you are able to see the show before it closes in two months, you should check it out. I never watched the TV show and only had a passing familiarity with what Bob Esponja (what the poster for the movie said in Spain and so what my husbo and I call Spongebob 100% of the time for the past 3 years) and his friend the pink starfish looked like before I sat in the uppermost balcony at the Palace Theatre (that $30 rush ticket though) amid hundreds of screaming, eating, texting children (and their worse-behaved parents) for this show. I was prepared for this kind of audience, and even so, given the multitude of surprisingly positive reviews and the insanely strong fan base, I was prepared to love it. I had a good time, but I didn’t love it.
This musical tells the story of this simple sponge who lives in a pineapple under the sea (SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS okay that part I knew before too who DOESN’T know the theme song and then it goes like abhorrent and boorish and porous is he!!) in a cute little under the sea town called Bikini Bottom and he has other species friends and bosses and frenemies and it’s all cute. BUT THEN, they get news that a nearby volcano is going to erupt and destroy their town! Oh noes. Almost everyone agrees that they should leave town (I mean, right?) before doomsday. The villains, Plankton and his robot (?) wife, offer that they should put all town residents in an escape pod to get to their next home, and everyone is like wow great idea but Plankton and sea-Janet really just want everyone in one confined space so they can hypnotize them and convince them to eat at their failing restaurant instead of at the very popular Krusty Krabs, where Spongebob works as a fry cook. (How do they fry under water.) Spongebob is the only one who doesn’t want to flee the coming horror, because he simple. He thinks they should fight for their home, and so he sets off on a mission to save the town in the two days he has before the predicted eruption. Meanwhile, the rest of the town plans a concert to raise money to pay for the escape pod.
Okay fine, a little silly but a decent story choice for a Spongebob musical! But guess what, it’s also quite political and timely. While Bob Esponja is like hmm how do I stop a volcano, maybe with French fries???, the rest of the town is looking for someone to blame for everything, as most people do when something goes wrong (except unlike in real life, the people looking to blame an innocent person aren’t also the ones responsible). So the townsfolk decide to blame Sandy Cheeks, the smart adorable FEMALE squirrel, all things that powerful people despise, for the impending destruction. Of course, blame the smart woman! They choose her because she’s a land mammal, and so it’s easy to turn the town against her with chants of how she doesn’t belong there. I KNOW, it’s pretty darn topical. Also, Sandy is played by Lilli Cooper (the great), who is black, so it’s really poignant to show her being ostracized so the mostly white kids (hopefully) get the connection and see that that’s bad. Even though the town is trying to drive Sandy out, Spongebob convinces her to help him save the day, since Sandy is a brilliant scientist (and the real hero of the show). She creates a device that when dropped into the mouth of the volcano will turn the lava flow into harmless bubbles and I am here for that kind of scientific discovery, Elon. Spongebob volunteers to be the sad sack who has to drop the machine into the volcano, so a lot of the second act is him climbing the volcano/the little moving set piece. Obviously, he makes it to the top and saves the day and the town, and the town lauds him and forgives Sandy for being black but literally gives her nothing else, no acclaim for being the actual savior of everything and so I was a little salty and kind of wish that the town actually was destroyed because fuck that, this badass girl is a squirrel who is a scientist and she’s merely ALLOWED TO KEEP LIVING IN THE TOWN WHILE THE STUPID WHITE MAN FRY COOK IS CONSIDERED THE HERO OF IT ALL? please. Anyway that’s just my take on it, because of course Bob was going to be the hero in the show named after him, but how good would it have been to turn the tables on him and be like ‘thanks for doing the manual labor portion of the job now let’s have a parade for this amazing black girl!’ but no. So that’s the plot and it’s cute but it gets a little long considering it’s a kids show. The second act needed to be shorter.
So, full truth here. The best reviewed thing about this show, besides its set design, is ts leading spongeman, Ethan Slater, in a miraculous Broadway debut that has him singing, dancing, and pretty much jumping up and down and all around like a dynamo/bouncing ball/firework/sponge for hours and hours and keeping those energy levels up and keeping the rest of his cast energized and engaged and just being adorable and amazing and Tony-worthy, so everyone said. He was 98% of the reason I saw the show, the other 2% being for the set and the 12 Tony nominations it received. But apparently, those energy levels are real hard to keep up for 8 shows a week for months on end, because starting in about May, Ethan low-key started taking off at least one performance a week. And I fully understand why, and I appreciate that anyone doing this role full time would have to do that to stay alive because it requires absolute insane physicality from its star. But they should have set a defined performance and a defined alternate, as they do for most stars doing 7 of 8 shows. The ‘random’ performance he took off that week was my performance. Like, fuck. Curtis Holbrook, the understudy, did a marvelous job and I had zero complaints, but I didn’t get to see the performance that everyone was raving about. I can’t imagine what Ethan could do differently, though, to make people think he was robbed of a Tony. It’s a great, meaty, exhausting role, but it’s no great feat of acting.
And the cast is great all-around, really, with nice performances from Cooper and Skinner and a standout one from tap-dancing phenomenon Gavin Lee, as Squidward. He wears a costume that gives him four legs, and he brings the house down with a long extravagant tap number. It’s the best part of the show, rightly so given that he’s the one true vet up there. The tap dance alone that he does is difficult and impressive enough, but the fact that he’s doing it with four legs – and making it seem effortless – is astounding. There’s also a standout vocal performance from Jai’len Christine Li Josey, an 18-year-old girl who won the 2014 Jimmy Awards, kind of the Tonys for high school musical theatre performers. Her voice is the kind that’s a gift from the gods. She’s absolutely insane. She wasn’t the most natural actor, but with that voice I’m sure she will have a strong career, one that I hope includes “Seasons of Love” soloist among other bigger parts.
The biggest news surrounding this production is what I consider one of its biggest flaws: that its score was compiled by a seemingly endless list of super famous musicians, including Sara Bareilles, David Bowie (RIP hope this isn’t the last thing he did), John Legend, Lady Antebellum, Steven Tyler, Cyndi Lauper, I mean it’s very ridiculous that this is a list of composers for one Broadway show. Each musician wrote one song in the show, and while it’s fun to be like ‘Oh this song was written by…THE RAPPER T.I.???? and this one by…Panic! At the Disco?????’, that kind of set up does not make for a cohesive musical. It makes for a disjointed one, with no real common threads that a musical needs to succeed as a whole and not just be a concert set against a story. Fun fact: For a long time my dad thought it was Panic! At the Drive-in because Sirius radio only showed the band’s name up to D and he assumed it stood for drive-in. The best songs by far were “Bikini Bottom Day”, by Jonathan Coulton, and Bareilles’ pirate song, which had nothing to do with the plot and was used as a silly intermission ender.
I think if the score was written by one great composing team, the musical would have been better and lasted longer, because every visual aspect of the production is superb. David Zinn’s set design is a marvel, and he rightly won the Tony for it. He uses everyday items – kind of like what you would (too easily) find floating in the ocean as garbage – to create this seascape of underwater magic that still feels familiar. His best work is the enormous Rube Goldberg contraptions on the sides of the stage that come into play at specific moments, huge devices that use little balls to spin wheels to drop levers to push handles &c &c to spit beach balls at the cast or something like that. It was the best.
The amazing visual treats also include Christopher Gattelli’s fun and inspired choreography, with magical moments like when the cast holds yellow sponges in the dark to e.g. make Bob’s flying cape in “Simple Sponge”. That number was actually gorgeous. And everything is handled masterfully by Tina Landau’s direction. Bringing this kind of show to life is difficult, and she deserves all the acclaim, like Sandy, for bringing it all together. Even the costumes were phenomenal, using regular clothes for the most part to evoke the familiar characters. Spongebob doesn’t wear a big suit like he’s just outside the theatre door hounding tourists in Times Square. He just wears a yellow shirt and red tie and plaid pants – and it works brilliantly. Patrick the starfish (a lovable Danny Skinner) wears an oversize pink tee shirt paired with green shorts in another so-simple-it’s-brilliant technique.
So the visuals are great. But it’s the other senses that get attacked. It’s the loudest musical ever. The fact that they were nominated for a Sound Design Tony is 100% due to the fun special effects produced live by the man (sorry can’t find your name) in the first balcony box with a keyboard equipped with the craziest sounds, like bubbles and squeaks and other noises of all sorts that aren’t British foods. That’s all done very well and amusingly but it gets to be a little too much. But who can even pay attention to them when the theatre is full of ear-damaging speakers that make everything so loud it would be bad even with earplugs? It was painful at times. And I’ve heard from people who sat in different sections that they could barely hear it! What is going on with the sound in this theatre? It sounds like a g-d mess. Is it so loud in most places to keep children’s attention? Maybe? but damaging everyone’s eardrums seems like not the right solution. And if kids are going to lose focus, having everything be super loud isn’t going to help. The rock concert that Squidward stages showed this more than ever, because a rock band plays and it’s just awfully loud and I wanted to scream get off my lawn.
I mean I’m starting to get too deep into the ranty ravey portion of my theatre discussions, and we don’t need to do that. “Spongebob” was a fun confection of a Broadway show, but I wish that they paid more attention to making it a fully realized show that adults would enjoy and not just kids, and that includes paying more attention to the crux of a musical – the score. As it is, it’s cheerful and fun and it’s a helluva lot better than anyone predicted when they first announced a Spongebob musical, but I wish it was truly great.
INFORMATION
If you go, turn off your phone and don’t bring loud food and drinks in or treat it like you’re at a party, because you’re not a monster. But don’t expect anyone else to follow your lead.
This musical tells the story of this simple sponge who lives in a pineapple under the sea (SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS okay that part I knew before too who DOESN’T know the theme song and then it goes like abhorrent and boorish and porous is he!!) in a cute little under the sea town called Bikini Bottom and he has other species friends and bosses and frenemies and it’s all cute. BUT THEN, they get news that a nearby volcano is going to erupt and destroy their town! Oh noes. Almost everyone agrees that they should leave town (I mean, right?) before doomsday. The villains, Plankton and his robot (?) wife, offer that they should put all town residents in an escape pod to get to their next home, and everyone is like wow great idea but Plankton and sea-Janet really just want everyone in one confined space so they can hypnotize them and convince them to eat at their failing restaurant instead of at the very popular Krusty Krabs, where Spongebob works as a fry cook. (How do they fry under water.) Spongebob is the only one who doesn’t want to flee the coming horror, because he simple. He thinks they should fight for their home, and so he sets off on a mission to save the town in the two days he has before the predicted eruption. Meanwhile, the rest of the town plans a concert to raise money to pay for the escape pod.
Okay fine, a little silly but a decent story choice for a Spongebob musical! But guess what, it’s also quite political and timely. While Bob Esponja is like hmm how do I stop a volcano, maybe with French fries???, the rest of the town is looking for someone to blame for everything, as most people do when something goes wrong (except unlike in real life, the people looking to blame an innocent person aren’t also the ones responsible). So the townsfolk decide to blame Sandy Cheeks, the smart adorable FEMALE squirrel, all things that powerful people despise, for the impending destruction. Of course, blame the smart woman! They choose her because she’s a land mammal, and so it’s easy to turn the town against her with chants of how she doesn’t belong there. I KNOW, it’s pretty darn topical. Also, Sandy is played by Lilli Cooper (the great), who is black, so it’s really poignant to show her being ostracized so the mostly white kids (hopefully) get the connection and see that that’s bad. Even though the town is trying to drive Sandy out, Spongebob convinces her to help him save the day, since Sandy is a brilliant scientist (and the real hero of the show). She creates a device that when dropped into the mouth of the volcano will turn the lava flow into harmless bubbles and I am here for that kind of scientific discovery, Elon. Spongebob volunteers to be the sad sack who has to drop the machine into the volcano, so a lot of the second act is him climbing the volcano/the little moving set piece. Obviously, he makes it to the top and saves the day and the town, and the town lauds him and forgives Sandy for being black but literally gives her nothing else, no acclaim for being the actual savior of everything and so I was a little salty and kind of wish that the town actually was destroyed because fuck that, this badass girl is a squirrel who is a scientist and she’s merely ALLOWED TO KEEP LIVING IN THE TOWN WHILE THE STUPID WHITE MAN FRY COOK IS CONSIDERED THE HERO OF IT ALL? please. Anyway that’s just my take on it, because of course Bob was going to be the hero in the show named after him, but how good would it have been to turn the tables on him and be like ‘thanks for doing the manual labor portion of the job now let’s have a parade for this amazing black girl!’ but no. So that’s the plot and it’s cute but it gets a little long considering it’s a kids show. The second act needed to be shorter.
So, full truth here. The best reviewed thing about this show, besides its set design, is ts leading spongeman, Ethan Slater, in a miraculous Broadway debut that has him singing, dancing, and pretty much jumping up and down and all around like a dynamo/bouncing ball/firework/sponge for hours and hours and keeping those energy levels up and keeping the rest of his cast energized and engaged and just being adorable and amazing and Tony-worthy, so everyone said. He was 98% of the reason I saw the show, the other 2% being for the set and the 12 Tony nominations it received. But apparently, those energy levels are real hard to keep up for 8 shows a week for months on end, because starting in about May, Ethan low-key started taking off at least one performance a week. And I fully understand why, and I appreciate that anyone doing this role full time would have to do that to stay alive because it requires absolute insane physicality from its star. But they should have set a defined performance and a defined alternate, as they do for most stars doing 7 of 8 shows. The ‘random’ performance he took off that week was my performance. Like, fuck. Curtis Holbrook, the understudy, did a marvelous job and I had zero complaints, but I didn’t get to see the performance that everyone was raving about. I can’t imagine what Ethan could do differently, though, to make people think he was robbed of a Tony. It’s a great, meaty, exhausting role, but it’s no great feat of acting.
And the cast is great all-around, really, with nice performances from Cooper and Skinner and a standout one from tap-dancing phenomenon Gavin Lee, as Squidward. He wears a costume that gives him four legs, and he brings the house down with a long extravagant tap number. It’s the best part of the show, rightly so given that he’s the one true vet up there. The tap dance alone that he does is difficult and impressive enough, but the fact that he’s doing it with four legs – and making it seem effortless – is astounding. There’s also a standout vocal performance from Jai’len Christine Li Josey, an 18-year-old girl who won the 2014 Jimmy Awards, kind of the Tonys for high school musical theatre performers. Her voice is the kind that’s a gift from the gods. She’s absolutely insane. She wasn’t the most natural actor, but with that voice I’m sure she will have a strong career, one that I hope includes “Seasons of Love” soloist among other bigger parts.
The biggest news surrounding this production is what I consider one of its biggest flaws: that its score was compiled by a seemingly endless list of super famous musicians, including Sara Bareilles, David Bowie (RIP hope this isn’t the last thing he did), John Legend, Lady Antebellum, Steven Tyler, Cyndi Lauper, I mean it’s very ridiculous that this is a list of composers for one Broadway show. Each musician wrote one song in the show, and while it’s fun to be like ‘Oh this song was written by…THE RAPPER T.I.???? and this one by…Panic! At the Disco?????’, that kind of set up does not make for a cohesive musical. It makes for a disjointed one, with no real common threads that a musical needs to succeed as a whole and not just be a concert set against a story. Fun fact: For a long time my dad thought it was Panic! At the Drive-in because Sirius radio only showed the band’s name up to D and he assumed it stood for drive-in. The best songs by far were “Bikini Bottom Day”, by Jonathan Coulton, and Bareilles’ pirate song, which had nothing to do with the plot and was used as a silly intermission ender.
I think if the score was written by one great composing team, the musical would have been better and lasted longer, because every visual aspect of the production is superb. David Zinn’s set design is a marvel, and he rightly won the Tony for it. He uses everyday items – kind of like what you would (too easily) find floating in the ocean as garbage – to create this seascape of underwater magic that still feels familiar. His best work is the enormous Rube Goldberg contraptions on the sides of the stage that come into play at specific moments, huge devices that use little balls to spin wheels to drop levers to push handles &c &c to spit beach balls at the cast or something like that. It was the best.
The amazing visual treats also include Christopher Gattelli’s fun and inspired choreography, with magical moments like when the cast holds yellow sponges in the dark to e.g. make Bob’s flying cape in “Simple Sponge”. That number was actually gorgeous. And everything is handled masterfully by Tina Landau’s direction. Bringing this kind of show to life is difficult, and she deserves all the acclaim, like Sandy, for bringing it all together. Even the costumes were phenomenal, using regular clothes for the most part to evoke the familiar characters. Spongebob doesn’t wear a big suit like he’s just outside the theatre door hounding tourists in Times Square. He just wears a yellow shirt and red tie and plaid pants – and it works brilliantly. Patrick the starfish (a lovable Danny Skinner) wears an oversize pink tee shirt paired with green shorts in another so-simple-it’s-brilliant technique.
So the visuals are great. But it’s the other senses that get attacked. It’s the loudest musical ever. The fact that they were nominated for a Sound Design Tony is 100% due to the fun special effects produced live by the man (sorry can’t find your name) in the first balcony box with a keyboard equipped with the craziest sounds, like bubbles and squeaks and other noises of all sorts that aren’t British foods. That’s all done very well and amusingly but it gets to be a little too much. But who can even pay attention to them when the theatre is full of ear-damaging speakers that make everything so loud it would be bad even with earplugs? It was painful at times. And I’ve heard from people who sat in different sections that they could barely hear it! What is going on with the sound in this theatre? It sounds like a g-d mess. Is it so loud in most places to keep children’s attention? Maybe? but damaging everyone’s eardrums seems like not the right solution. And if kids are going to lose focus, having everything be super loud isn’t going to help. The rock concert that Squidward stages showed this more than ever, because a rock band plays and it’s just awfully loud and I wanted to scream get off my lawn.
I mean I’m starting to get too deep into the ranty ravey portion of my theatre discussions, and we don’t need to do that. “Spongebob” was a fun confection of a Broadway show, but I wish that they paid more attention to making it a fully realized show that adults would enjoy and not just kids, and that includes paying more attention to the crux of a musical – the score. As it is, it’s cheerful and fun and it’s a helluva lot better than anyone predicted when they first announced a Spongebob musical, but I wish it was truly great.
INFORMATION
If you go, turn off your phone and don’t bring loud food and drinks in or treat it like you’re at a party, because you’re not a monster. But don’t expect anyone else to follow your lead.
Christmas Romcoms: Sorting the trash from the stinkier, wet trash
It is impossible — not just nearly impossible, but full-on impossible — to sort through and keep straight the overabundance of Christian Christmas roms, coms, and romcoms available across streaming services nowadays. Netflix spits 10 more out every few hours, and I think all the recent ones are former Hallmark prime viewing, so, real bottom of the barrel shit. And while I haven’t gotten to all of them (I am only human with 24 hours in a day), I’ve watched more than is safe for one’s health and sanity. The acting ability ranges from passable to horrendous, dialogue from cringey to painful, storylines from predictable to…predictable. There’s a formula these movies must adhere to, otherwise blonde white ladies with chunky scarves and their own small businesses come with pitchforks. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes you don’t even notice the story and how insane it is because the acting is so atrocious, and not always in that lovably, wonderfully, amazingly atrocious way. Here I go trying to sort through the heavily ha-white, heavily Republican (for real, it’s blatant), heavily Christian (like evangelizing movies, not in the whole Christmas is Christian obviousness) lot that keeps growing and growing.
First, let’s review the rules of these movies:
1. Small town charm. Usually, these movies cannot take place in cities because they are heavily Christian, which means republican, which means they need to show love to red states because the main audience lives in red states, or at least in the middle of nowhere. We also can’t have big cities because these teams don’t know from big cities, because no big city people are working on these, that’s why the people are so random looking and the scripts are shit.
2. As white as Ross’s teeth. All white people, all the time. The leads can have friends who are people of color, but those friends exist just to prove that they aren’t racist (it’s like…blatant) and to serve the main storyline, the white storyline. But they love their friends! These people aren’t racist!!
3. The women, if they aren’t heiresses, own small businesses (repubs love entrepreneurs! bootstraps!) or are so outstanding in their field despite being on the younger side that it’s like Rory Gilmore walking through town, everyone just fawns.
4. The men have daughters and are widowers. If they don’t have children, the woman is childless but is a widow, after her devoted husband tragically dies.
5. The woman works with her best friend (bonus points for a token person of color) so they can spend the whole workday talking about love and men (don’t tell Alison Bechdel).
6. The couple we are meant to root for will almost kiss about halfway through the movie, but it just isn’t the right time yet. (It’s so funny how true this is, like every single movie does this.)
7. There will be a child actor, and she will be terrible.
8. No one can have two parents. Disney cartoon rules. If the lead woman does (rare), then there is other family drama but no one else around can have two parents.
And away we go! Let’s start off with the absolute stankers and go from worst to best. Lol ‘best’. Please remember this is an exercise in comparisons – when I say something on this list is good, I don’t mean GOOD good, I mean like it’s good compared to a pile of shit, but that doesn’t make it not brown.
ANGEL FALLS CHRISTMAS
When I saw that Tristan Dugrey…no that’s not his real name…Chad Michael Murray! (I watched Gilmore, not One Tree Hill) was in this one, I was all in like Luke in Season 5. Meaning, excited at first but in actuality lying about it to myself.
Our set-up: young white doctor woman who is young but is exceptional at doctoring like so exceptional that everyone in the hospital talks nonstop about how great she is at doctor and how kind she is too, is obsessed with her job as doctor. A little too obsessed, according to Bad Boyfriend, who threatens to dump her instead of proposing to her, if she doesn’t chill out a little about being such a ‘career woman’ and instead get some gottam Christmas spirit. Can you even believe this shit ass? His girlfriend is an ER DOCTOR and he’s like ‘take more time offff put up a treeee you’re the worrrrst’. I hate this jamoke. He’s not even hot in the Hallmark movie D-level way. So I was glad that he did dump her and she immediately met Chad MM. Huge improvement, girlfriend.
This girl (who although she’s great at doctoring is not great at actoring) and Chad start spending lots of meaningful time together and it’s really nice. I am rooting for this matchup and hoping that she forgets completely about her idiot ex.
But something felt immediately off about Tristan. Every time he spoke, he had this weird tic of widening his eyes like he’s a dog begging for food. Like on every single line, his eyes would go weirdly wide, conspicuously so. AND THEN. AND THEN. AND GENTLEMEN, AND THEN…we find out that Chad is a FUCKING ANGEL. No not like that. like an ANGEL FROM HEAVEN. Okay still not like how you might be reading it, not like he was this great rare specimen of a man, no I mean like he wasn’t a man at all but a supernatural f-ing ANGEL FROM THE SKY. like LITERALLY. He was sent to bring fucking Christmas spirit or some bullshit to this workaholic’s life, not expecting that he would fall for her and I THOUGHT she was falling for him too and they were gonna go City of Angels with him giving up his angelhood so they could be together (but not going full City of Angels with him dying immediately) (sorry spoilers for that movie from 1998) (banger of an Alanis song though) but noooooooooooo instead he decided to do the so-called ‘right thing’ and give her Christmas spirit so she could RECONCILE WITH THE SHIT ASS EX BOYFRIEND WHO IS A TOTAL PIECE OF A NOTHING. UGHHHH worst ending EVER. hates it!
I still cannot believe Tristan’s whole angel characterization was ‘let me keep widening my eyes when I talk’. I guess they don’t cover how to be an angel in acting class.
I BELIEVE IN SANTA
This is going to sound mean but my first thought was ‘man, this male romantic lead is A NERD,’ and not in the cute way like we want in these movies. They need to be hotter or what’s the point. He was super familiar so I googled him — I think I recognize him from Will & Grace — and learned the disgusting information that he and the female lead are MARRIED IN REAL LIFE. That’s GROSS! Who wants to watch two marrieds do one of these! Ugh I was so embarrassed for them both. I can’t explain it it’s just icky.
The cringe on this one was off the charts, as was the clear-cut signaling to Republican voters that this Bud’s for you. Evidence: In the first 3 minutes of the movie, Lisa, our leading lady, is at work (at a publication that at least has an online presence, unclear if they have a paper output anymore) writing an article about the Fourth of July, which is when our story begins. I DID enjoy that it doesn’t drop us right into Christmas and instead it built up a story over time and actually gave us the background we needed. Her article – for her boss Glenn Gulia, bt dubs – says how J4 is the best holiday, much better than Christmas. She ends it by saying “God bless America, and God bless freedom in all its forms.” YEESH. Just in case we didn’t know who these are geared to. Anyway, cut to Tom reading that article, while drinking out of a Santa mug, and scoffing. This mfer is gonna LOVE Christmas, I bet!
While he does love Christmas, I didn’t think hard enough about the title. Yes, it turns out this grown ass adult (the actor is in his 50s I think) who works by day as a lawyer, and ‘one of the rare good ones’, gag, believes in Santa the Claus. By the time Christmas rolls around and we learn that, he and Lisa have had their meet cute (he finds her lost daughter at a J4 carnival, which was actually decently done, although can’t say the same about the kid’s acting) and have been a happy couple ever since. And Lisa, it turns out, is not so much a fan of Christmas at all!
I do appreciate the uniqueness of this movie giving us actual tension in an already existing happy relationship. That’s a pretty good setup. But the guy’s overbearing obsession with Christmas (his apartment, man alive!) and need to change Lisa’s mind about it would have been enough drama. To have him actually believe in Santa is unnecessary; it just makes him seem out of his gd mind.
Of course she comes around because it’s usually the women who have to change in these, and of course they end up happily evering, EVEN THOUGH THIS IS A GROWNUP WHO DEFENDS BELIEVING IN SANTA IN A UNIVERSE WHERE WILL FERRELL IS NOT AN ACTUAL ELF. But that’s not the only reason for my negative score. That’s also due to the Republicanizing and the grossly, offensively evangelical proselytizing vibes I got. Oh wait no, not vibes, actual conversations and quotes in this POS screenplay. Aside from the bit about freedom I already shared (gotta appease the gun nuts), what made my jaw drop way down low do they wobble to and fro was when Tom tells Lisa and their friends* why he believes in Santa. In the convo, Lisa points out that not everyone in the world celebrates Christmas. And Tom says: well, most people do! gasp. *Their friends, by the way, are a black woman and a brown Muslim man, so that we know they Aren’t Racist. So Lisa says to the man, ‘hey you’re a Muslim (she actually says that), tell him what’s what.’ And instead of letting the man speak for himself and maybe shed some nuance on his best friend’s stance, the writers have him say “oh ha ha I’ve learned not to fight Tom on this over the years!” or something equally demurring like that. Tom goes on to say that, while sure there are some people like My Muslim Friend who don’t celebrate Christmas as part of their religion, they still celebrate “Santa’s Christmas”. Yes, he really said those exact words. “They still celebrate Santa’s Christmas…When you sing along to Christmas songs, you’re celebrating Christmas. When you travel to spend time with family, you’re celebrating Christmas.” My god the hawhite American Christian blinders on this guy and the writers. OFFENSE! OFFENSE!
Anyway, I assumed the drama would be that he would be so eager to get her onto his pro-Christmas side and he’d be bending over backwards to show her how fun it is but in a, like, accommodating, sensitive way – but it’s the opposite torture! SHE is willing to try seeing from his perspective, she does all his insane busy xmas schedule of events (every single day and night! making dozens and dozens of cookies into the middle of the night!) and HE doesn’t even appreciate how hard she is trying. When she asks for one night off from the schedule (she doesn’t feel like going on a sleigh ride in the cold, I HEAR YOU GIRL), he’s like WHAT BUT I NEED TO GO! and she’s like ‘look at you you’re exhausted just take a break’ (he doesn’t sleep because of the xmas cookies) and he’s like I’LL BE FINE BITCH I NEED TO GO COME ON WTF and instead of letting her rest at home and just going himself, they break up and honestly, Lisa, you should have dumped him when he told you he actually believed in Santa, or when he questioned your parenting for not telling your kid wholeheartedly that Santa is totes real. Ugh.
Tom says at one point that he loves Christmas because Christmas is about being the best version of yourself. Ex squeeze me, what? That has about as much foundation as Love, Actually saying that Christmas is about telling the truth. To quote Ross, ‘it’s Thanksgiving! Not…not…Truth Day…!’ Meaning, no, none of those are true. Christmas is either about the baby Jesus or about capitalism.
Just when I thought it couldn’t get any more offensive, The Muslim Friend tells Lisa that we can’t judge Tom for this one tiny thing — being an adult who believes fully in Santa — because, in his experience as a Muslim in Colorado, he never wanted people to judge him for what he believes either. My god. They really went there. They are really comparing the plight of Muslims in red town American and, in his words, ‘people assuming my beliefs put me in a dangerous category’, with this wacko BELIEVING IN SANTA. NOT. THE SAME. When Lisa (inevitably) comes around, she f-ing thanks Tom for reminding her that adults can/should have a sense of childlike wonder too and believe in things bigger than themselves. Jesus. H. Christ. At the end, the big Christmas article that Lisa had to write states that Santa transcends countries and religions. UMM YIIIIKES.
What’s more offensive, that this movie continually argues that Santa, and thus Christmas, and thus Christianity, is indeed the mainstream culture for the entire world bar none, or that they tokenize a Muslim character to show support for this position? They’re like ‘if he’s okay with all a this then we’re good! and if we’re okay with him we can’t be racist!’ NOT TRUE! Did a Westboro Baptist write this? The only thing worse about this movie is that Missi Pyle is in it for 9 seconds as a carol singer. what a timeline we’re in. The only fantastic thing about this movie is after Lisa accepts Tom’s proposal (of course, come on, is that even a spoiler in these) he hugs his friend and shouts “I AM A MAN!” oh my god that’s the funniest thing I’ve ever heard.
A KINDHEARTED CHRISTMAS
When I saw that Jennie Garth was in one of these shitshows, barely a second passed before I hit play on that muhfucker. This one had to be good! And if ‘good’ means completely 100% true to the tried-and-treacly formula, then here we f-ing goooo!
First of all, this title, L O L. It hurts, it physically hurts.
Jennie plays a – let’s cross ’em off – small town tour guide ✔ who owned the small but mighty tour company ✔ who was beloved and respected by the whole town ✔ including the mayor ✔ who listened to all her amazing ideas ✔ like that the town needed a Christmas tree outside City Hall ✔ whose husband died ✔ tragically from cancer ✔ and they never got around to having kids ✔ who has a big bright white mansion with lots of Christmas decor ✔ whose assistant at work is her best friend ✔ who meets the TV morning show host she has a crush on by chance ✔ and he immediately is smitten with her even though she cannot act and he comes up with reasons to spend lots of time around her even though she cannot act and it’s quite painful at times but who cares it’s Christmas and even though she hasn’t dated since her husband tragically died she seems to make the transition here rather easily I guess because it’s a celebrity and even though we can’t read her emotions because of the terrible ‘acting’ they fall for each other and live happily ever after.
Happily ever after, that is, AFTER the very hard to believe conflict of this ‘drama’. Jennie has a secret: she is the town’s ‘Secret Santa’ that Cameron Mathison’s (I know) TV personality is tasked with uncovering at his viewers’ rabid request. Jennie is generous and kindhearted (drink) so she secretly buys things for people in town who are struggling, families who need an extra hand &c. She also buys the town’s Christmas tree for City Hall when the mayor is like, mm pass. So she is alll around a super generous person who for very understandable and kindhearted reasons doesn’t want anyone to know it’s her, obvs, good generous people stay anonymous thank you Tahani, So the drama is that, when Cameron finds out that she was the Secret Santa he’s been trying (rudely so) to uncover for his f-ing tv show ratings (which is not a Christmassy reason! not Jesus!), he has the audacity to be ANGRY at her! Unbelievable, what an absolute shit ass. Oh oh no you were too generous and giving and really embodied what Christmas SHOULD be about by buying groceries for that family who has been struggling recently financially, what an ABSOLUTE BITCH YOU ARE! He ends up apologizing but honestly his apology was NOT GOOD ENOUGH!
Aside from that insanity (what kind of Christian movie wants to make this point?? that being generous but anonymous is LY. ING. and EV.IL. a republican one I guess because true Christianity would be all over that!!) I obviously really enjoyed this movie, especially the part that Jennie Garth hundo p thought was going to be cut – when they are dancing at their fancy private dinner and she adjusts her boob, just full out flat out heaving ho, clearly assuming (rightly so!) that this would be edited out, because of course they would catch that and cut it! NOPE. Seriously go find it it’s hilarious. I feel almost bad for Jennie for the movie not having any editors who caught this/any editors at all but she’s had a whole career even though apparently she can’t act, so like, just enjoy your life girl.
I would love to say that Cameron Mathison is good enough of an actor to make up for everything Jennie Garth has lost since 90210, but not even Jesus is that powerful.
CHRISTMAS WEDDING PLANNER
Let’s see if this is as good or as cringey as the J-Lo classic! (Which is also cringe.)
The good start: The cast is attractive! So rare. Oh wait…the male lead…oh my god I recognize him from OTHER MOVIES ON THIS LIST! It’s none other than Stephen Huszar, who might be the MVP of Hallmark Christmas movies. He owns this genre. Hey props to the man for finding his niche, even though, gross. Whereas he was a perfect gent in the Christmas Creek movie (infra), he is a grade A jackass to start off here. Punch him in the face, Kelsey! She doesn’t. Sigh. Okay let’s rewind: Kelsey is our protag, a chirpy and goofy (and if this was a Chanukah movie she’d be klutzy) gal who is planning her first professional wedding as a wedding planner, which happens to be for her best friend, her cousin Emily. Her rich aunt hired her, and though she is a little strict and scary as rich aunts are, she loves her and has always cared for her, so the Scary Aunt Authority Figure stakes here are quite low. FYI, Rich Aunt (who is definitelyyy Trump-voting-even-though-she-finds-him-disgusting-as-do-all-her-friends-but-she-only-cares-about-her-own-money-so-there-she-goes-as-do-all-her-friends) is played by Kelly Rutherford, aka Serena Van Der Woodsen’s mom, aka the typecast Rich Aunt to end all typecasting.
Because the aunt and cousin are Society People, the wedding is being covered by wedding news outlets and like, the whole of society is obsessed. Our girl can’t f this up or her business will be over before it started! The biggest threatened hitch in her giddyup? None other than our Hallmark movie man, Stephen H, who is a private investigator hired to privately investigate Emily’s mysterious (read: terrible at acting) fiance.
By the way the fiance may honestly be the worst actor I’ve ever seen. I assume he was drunk, because he seemed drunk, and also because I couldn’t figure out if he had an English or Jamaican or just New English accent. Along with the fiance, the bridesmaids are such bad actors it actually hurts to watch, like the editors put in extra blank space instead of taking it out.
Wisely, Kelsey decides that she/her business would be safer if she kept tabs on Stephen and his investigatings especially since it might destroy her big wedding job, so she offers to help him. Obvs the story is that they get close and end up falling in love DESPITE ALL ODDS! But at the end it feels like they have spent maybe an hour together (and no I don’t mean the hour of the movie, I mean an hour of real life time, which is not good enough). Their middle-of-movie time getting to know each other is wasted on showing wordless montages of their time on a stakeout, which is extremely ineffective. A few short clips of them actually talking would have gone a lot further towards making it at all believable that they even know each other’s names, let alone have fallen in love.
I almost don’t want to spoil this movie because I still am in shock at the ending. But you aren’t going to watch this shit, right? Actually, maybe hearing how incredible this ending is will make you even more interested to watch, to really see the lack of foundation built up before the writers had the cajones to toss in this bombshell of a twist. Not only did Stephen (oh his name in this is Connor but literally whatever) and Kelsey fall in love despite knowing each other a few days and having 2 minute conversations 3 different times, they decide — oh my god seriously gird your loins — when Stephen’s discoveries finally come to light and ruin the wedding, that instead of letting the wedding go to waste, and send all these guests home unsatisfied, that THEY WILL GET MARRIED! Hey there’s a perfectly good wedding going on here, they say, let’s not waste it even though we just met!!At least they did something different!! (Btw, who would be unsatisfied actually attending a wedding where someone drops a bombshell of a reveal at the ‘speak now or forever hold your peace’ part??? that’s amazing.) Well, honestly, good for Kelsey; at least she ends with a husband because judging by the look of the chapel she has no clue how to throw a wedding.
A CHRISTMAS MIRACLE FOR DAISY
Okay the title of this one made me squeal with anticipatory delight of how horrible and cringey this would be – I assumed it would be top of the heap – but it was better than expected because the leading lady had good natural acting vibes and – my most important thing – the late stage ‘conflict’ that causes the ‘drama’ was short-lived and weak, exactly how I like it.
I watched this after watching the Jennie Garth one, so this actress’s acting ability shone since, as we learned, Jennie Garth was shockingly poor. Unlike poor Kelly Taylor, this light-haired small business owner in a small town was natural and believable, not stilted at all even when she had to meet the main love interest guy’s daughter (see below) and Santa simultaneously. That’s a hard pair to juggle!
Whitney, our LL, is an interior designer whose next big project is this beautiful ranch that was just purchased by…her ex-boyfriend, a high powered Business Man from LA who is suddenly back in her life. Turns out SHE dumped HIM back in the day preemptively, because a) she didn’t want to be held back from her own career and b) she assumed he would always choose his career first. And even though he seems on top of things, he never found anyone else because he has still been thinking of her. TYPICAL. Also, now he is the adoptive father ✔ of his cousin’s young daughter ✔ after his cousin and his wife tragically died ✔. But at the start, we think it’s just his new daughter.
Full disclosure: These movies have made me so incredibly stupid over the past month. I’m going to share a thought I had while watching this that I’m still embarrassed about. I feel like I should contact my alma maters just to let them know they are free to rescind any honors based on the following. I’m sharing it as a PSA, kids, so you know that these movies can poison an otherwise nicely functioning brain. Okay here we go. I actually had the following thought – briefly, but I still had it. After Whitney meets the guy’s daughter and is shocked simply shocked about it, she goes to tell BFF about it. She says, “She looks about 7 or 8 years old. That means as soon as we broke up, he went off and had a kid!” And *I* though, oh my god what if she’s the mother?? Yep. Yep. Took me a minute. I need to go lie down now for at least 45 minutes. NO, an HOUR. A FULL HOUR.
Anyway so obviously the working together on the house (which mainly consists of going to this rando yard sale several different times and just buying furniture from a silent guy, meaning this movie was too cheap to let this guy have a line) Whitney and, I wanna say Carter? fall backsies in love and the little girl, Daisy, is so happy because she wants two parents and why do these movies have to be so so tragic about the kids??? Let’s talk about better things: Carter’s beard looks like that desk toy with the little magnetic metal filings, you know what I’m talking about? He was a little bit magoo but overall everyone was okay.
Daisy, the child and the titular Christmas miracle haver, was child Acting with a capital A but was among the less annoying of her ilk. All the dialogue happened to be written by an alien who was knew to humanity (not even an AI, which would never have let this shit slide).
The B plot couple was the toothiest smilers I’ve ever seen but not in a Julia Roberts way, more of a murderer way.
I liked that the miscommunication causing the big climactic rift in the connection of the main couple was like, the nothingest nothing that ever was (might he want to move back to LA? no he just might go there for a meeting?) and more importantly it lasted 3 minutes. We aren’t watching these for the conflicts, right.
FALLING FOR CHRISTMAS
Lindsay Lohan’s big comeback was one of the nicer movies on this list, thanks to…honestly not sure what magic ingredient helped. Maybe it was Chord Overstreet (real name), our old friend from Glee. I wish I could say it was Lindsay’s naturalism that made her amazing as a kid but that shit was nowhere to be seen; she was now stilted and awkward. But you know what, still lovable! Chord was great, and it was nice to see him. But the best surprise was his daughter (obviously from his deceased wife, tick that bingo box), Little Anthony Ramos as I call her, the little girl who was incred in the In The Heights movie. She is so cute and so great! Love her!
So in this Overboard-esque junk show, Lindsay is an heiress who falls off a cliff when skiing with her abominable boyfriend after he proposes. He gets lost and finds a mountain man who helps him. Lindsay, meanwhile, has amnesia and falls in with the inn crowd at Chord + daughter + mother in law’s ski lodge. She learns how to make beds and hot chocolate and be an all-around decent person, decent enough for Stand Up Widower Single Dad to fall in love with and who would finally make her father proud? I guess? I didn’t really get from him that he cared what kind of person his daughter was (this isn’t Christmas Inheritance) but these movies always surprise you slash forget character continuity.
There were some nice emotional beats in this, like everything with the poor mother in law was heartfelt even though those beats always strike me as exploitative. Even though Lindsay’s twin who stopped acting after The Parent Trap was apparently the one with all the skillz, we still find ourselves rooting for her and hoping that she stiltingly finds her way to Chord’s side in the end. The worst part of this movie was Lindsay’s boyfriend. He was the most annoying character maybe in the history of film. Which sometimes is funny, I guess? But it was not believable that she would ever be with him. Also…he was gay! Right? Or at least bi! I mean more people should be bi, it’s 2019 it’s like get over yourself!
SINGLE ALL THE WAY
Michael Urie’s entry is for sure the only democratic one, not just because gays but because these people actually know pop culture and come from LA.
In this lil treat of a movie, Michael Urie goes back to his cold little town for Christmas and brings his best friend. They’re going to pretend that they are finally a couple so that his family will be happy that he isn’t single and alone, but the family’s like a) we aren’t that stupid b) your mom is setting you up with her gym trainer for a blind date don’t worry he’s hot and c) even though we’re setting you up on a blind date, we all think you and BFF should actually be together finally anyway so just COME ON get OVER YOURSELVES and RISK YOUR FRIENDSHIP because you’re PERFECT TOGETHER!
And it’s true! You know they will finally see what everyone else can see but it’s a bit sloppy to get there. The whole movie is fairly fun, but the end is messy and not in a good way. Like they are both finally getting around to admitting what everyone else can see, but the writing let’s them down. Instead of writing any nice line that might be partly satisfying, there’s this stupid back and forth about how one just bought the other a store? It almost ruined the whole thing for me.
But it didn’t hold a candle to the actual weakest link: Jennifer Coolidge. Look I know we all love her and she is having quite the moment at the moment but she was so ill-used in this movie, as like a wacky aunt directing the kids’ Christmas play at the church or the community center or whatever. We don’t need any of this. Love, Actually gave us all the Christmas play info we ever needed. And all the talk about Jennifer’s work going on tour?? A TOUR OF WHAT? random small town churches?? WHAT DO YOU MEAN? this isn’t the regional theatre house network, it’s the 4-minute play in the local church about the birth of Jesus! JE SUIS CONFUSED.
Best line: BFF tells Michael Urie to get dressed quickly and says ‘go don that gay apparel’ which I cannot believe hasn’t been done before. What a classic Christmas + gay line, just absolute king shit.
I know you are going to be like, I cannot believe two Hallmarks are going to land higher on this list than this nearly legit movie, but the writing at the end made me actually that angry that it really dropped it down a few pegs for me. Even though all of it is so much better than the next two. It hurts more when one with actual potential lets you down than when pieces of shit that are MEANT to be pieces of shit don’t hurt you. You think I’d go hoarse for a player with no potential?
A CHRISTMAS INHERITANCE
I don’t think there’s a movie out there that experienced a bigger turn-around in quality mid-movie. After an intro that had me screaming in frustration and laughing at how bad it was, A Christmas Inheritance really came through in the end. Not even in the end, after the first 20 minutes we were good! Is it due to Jake Lacy? Did he learn so much on the set of The Office? Or was it Andie McDowell, giving some necessary heft to the cast list? Or was it just that one of these movies took their formulaic plot and did a decent job with it? All of the above, how about!
In this one, our heroine Ellen Langford is a NYC ‘Party Heiress’ who has tons of money and not an ounce of self-respect or decorum. We see her at a benefit party gymnasticsing into a Christmas tree for the papers to capture for their front pages. This is the part that made me scream, because she was absolutely going to land all her jumps but then this old bitch screamed at her MID FLIP and so OF COURSE she lost her footing and fell into the big tree. It’s the old broad’s fault, not Ellen’s! Maybe Ellen shouldn’t have been doing flips at a benefit but that guy said he would quadruple his donation to charity if she did! SHE WAS DOING IT FOR CHARITY!
Okay so her father the CEO of whatever famous company has a famous heiress that the papes care about, he sends her incognito to the small town he came from and began his business in so she can learn the true value of hard work and good people and Christmas and probably Jesus too and everything. She meets the locals – Andie McD, Jake McL, homeless people that she lets stay in her hotel room – and becomes a better person thanks to their influence (see that last part). She and Jakie also of course fall in the ooh la las, but Ellen is ENGAGED. To a PRICK. Will she leave the prick, take the cannoli? Will Jake still fancy her even when he finds out who she really is? Or will he be so mad that she hid her true identity – basically that she LIED? He HATES LIE GUYS. All of the above, friends!
Even though Ellen wasn’t mmm the best actress or mmm the hottest (I require beautiful people I’m sorry I am as shallow as the content I’m watching), I really bought her and Jake together and was totally invested in their story. Unlike Christmas Wedding Planner, this movie actually showed us, instead of just telling us, that these two were good together and had fun together and had good talks and had the opportunity to get to know each other and like each other. So it was easy and believable to become invested and root for them and for Ellen’s whole “I’m a good person yes it’s true” turnabout. LOVES IT!
The end, when everything comes together plus Santa, was fully satisfying and managed to throw a few nice surprises our way (Uncle Zeke!) without being actually good or elevating the material (why not have a little scene between Aunt Andie McD, who knew who Ellen was the whole time, and her nephew Jake, where she’s like ‘get over yourself!’ or something? Because it’s not supposed to be that good). I found myself really happy for our Santababies and not feeling as disgusted with myself as I usually do when I watch these. Maybe my bar is just so, so low.
The best part of this movie is when Ellen looks at a teddy bear and says ‘what are you so happy about’ and it wasn’t even a teddy bear with a mouth, let alone a smiley one. Ugh I’ll never get over how goodbad all this shit is.
RETURN TO CHRISTMAS CREEK
This guy wins for: Most laughable title. I pushed play so fast when I saw this thing I thought there would be smoke. I was so ready for a POS. But guess what? This one is one of my faves!
You could have knocked me over with a feather if you told me in the first three minutes that I was going to actually like this movie, because it had one of the best lines that nothing in any bad movie ever could ever top. When our heroine, Amelia, is pitching her boss her new app idea ‘Christmas Assist’ (it’s basically existing wishlist/registry tech, is it not?), boss man says “I’m not sure that Christmas Assist encompasses the true spirit of Christmas.” HAHAHAHA. That’s a winner!!!!! As is expected, nay necessary, in these Christiannormative universes, Amelia returns to Christmas Creek to harness the spirit of Christmas so she can do better at work. Honestly I’m not even phased by sentences like that anymore. I was actually more offended by her assistant calling her out for not being very festive in the office. IT’S CALLED BEING PROFESSIONAL.
Amelia goes to Christmas Creek, where she grew up but only in the early years, like till 13? without telling her parents, because when they moved, they had a rift with her brother’s brother who they left behind to run the family business or whatever. I think it’s an inn. Oh of course it’s an inn, it’s one of these movies. So Amelia goes back to the inn and is like Uncle Mike! or whatever his name is, it’s me your niece Amelia! Don’t tell dad I’m here but let’s reconcile! And the uncle is actually Steven Weber from Wings. There’s always someone you recognize in these piles.
Oh the terrible child actor in this one is named Scout, doing a disservice to the og. My god she needs to chill the f. She says to Amelia within 10 seconds of meeting her CHRISTMAS IS THE GREATEST TIME OF YEAR! jfc. Of course, she turns out to be the niece of Amelia’s childhood best friend Mike, and Mike turns out to be none other than our main squeeze Stephen Huszar. He is great in this one because he plays the nicest goodest man you could imagine – he helps his sister and her daughter while the husband is at army mother ✔ (obviously her father is a soldier, SUPPORT THE TROOPS unless that requires you actually vote for people who vote for programs that help them cough cough) anyway so Mike does the local search and rescue ✔ helps Amelia’s uncle for years with toy drives ✔ is generally the town’s man on call ✔ has been in love with his childhood best friend for 20 years even though they haven’t seen each other for almost that long ✔. I love the 13 Going on 30 vibes of that even though it’s so hard to believe, like I barely remember my friends from when I was 13, who on earth believes /thinks like this.
Amelia and Mike spend tons of pre-Christmas time together doing the toy drive etc as is required in these movies and of course they fall (back?) in love and it’s generally wonderful. But then! But then her parents find out she disobeyed (??) them and went back to the Creek, so they come and everyone’s like OH MAN WHAT’S GONNA HAPPEN? And the conflict comes when Amelia yells at Mike that it might not be okay. WOW WHAT HIGH DRAMA. And then she apologizes for snapping. oh. And then everything works out okay. Honestly on paper this is a pile of stanker but I loved it. Maybe because everyone was hot.
CHRISTMAS WITH A VIEW
I fully expected this to be cringey garbage but I loved it. It barely had any frustrations borne of unnecessary or unbelievable miscommunication, which all the crappiest entertainment use as a crutch instead of writing things believably. The only actually disappointing thing I can think of is the title, because while there is a view mentioned from the ski resort it takes place in, that’s so so so not important. And it takes place in a restaurant!! There are endless possibilities for cutesy titles based on a restaurant kitchens or staff theme. Weeeak.
But other than that, LOVES. We start at a restaurant watching the staff watch a cooking competition show on TV. They all cheer when the chef they were rooting for, Shane, wins. Fun fact: one of the other contestants, shown for just a second, is the same actor playing the same character – a famous chef named Sharl – as in the movie above with Kelly Rutherford about the terrible wedding planner. I think Sharl as a recurring character is like a Hallmark thing. So do not understand the point but I also kind of love it. So Shane wins, the staff goes back to work serving and running and cooking at this ski resort’s restaurant. That night, our capable and kind and pretty manager Clara and her lovable goofball friend run into Shane, in real life! He’s checking into the resort, what are the odds. And he bumps into Clara, and they make googly eyes at each other. What are the odds even moreeee when the next day at work, the restaurant’s new short-stint get-the-crowds-in celebrity chef for the high season (??? is this a thing at ski resorts, I’ve never skied) is Shane!! Who saw that coming.
Shane and Clara make further googlies at each other but try to stay professional as best they can. No they don’t, they flirt hard for a few days then go out pretty quickly and they make out in a car like children. But Clara makes a crucial mistake mid-makeout: she says “wow I can’t believe I’m making out with a celebrity!” Shane is so disgusted that she said something so stupid that he leaves and they’re in a fight. He actually thinks that she meant it as like a “wow I love courting famous people just for their fame” and not that she means like, it’s weird I was just watching you on TV. What a judgmental bitch boy!
Luckily this frustrating nonsense doesn’t last long because CHRISTMAS COMES so Clara goes to her mom’s — played by mufucking VIVICA A. FOX! She’s so random and awkward and I love it. Clara thinks Shane is in NYC with his family, but instead he is trying to find out family secrets with the help of Clara’s ski-resort-adopted-ish-family (am I doing a great job explaining), one of which is mufucking PATRICK DUFFY! The supporting cast on this one is ace. So fortunately everything gets explained and Clara and Shane admit their love and everything is nice and enjoyable in large part because of the great supporting cast. She has a fun best friend, the Duffy fam is adorable, and the antagonist – the restaurant owner – actually gets an interesting storyline. LOVES IT! And of course, as we’ve learned is important to me, the leads are attractive for the genre.
SOMETHING FROM TIFFANY’S
Let me admit this right off the bat: This script might have some of the most frustrating, doesn’t-pass-the-smell-test, watch-me-scream-at-the-screen-as-if-they-could-hear-me-and-I-could-fix-things parts out of this whole entire list. I was LIVID at the choices the writers made. Why didn’t Ethan just ASK Zoey about the ring? Why didn’t he show his receipt or ask to see Gary’s (which we already saw so it was weird it didn’t come out again)? Why don’t people do things that MAKE SENSE!
So then why is this so high on my list? Because the cast!! Well! At least the two leads! Were so good! It stars Zoey Deutsch as a Jewish-Italian baker/chef so already I am SO IN, not only for the representation but because I love love Zoey and her romcom ‘Set It Up’, which I will publicly debate is the best romcom of the last decade. Seriously happy to do so. And also, despite the writing, the overall quality of this one is clearly ‘real movie’ more than any of these Hallmark jawns.
So Zoey has a diddadoof boyfriend named Gary who gets himself hit by a car after he buys her earrings at Tiffany’s for Christmas. Hotso single dad Ethan just left the store with his tween after buying an engagement ring for his Pretty Little Liar girlfriend. He gets to Gary first and sees him off to an ambulance — and accidentally grabs Gary’s little blue bag, leaving Gary his engagement ring. Lo and behold, Gary gives his gift to Zoey on Christmas morn and she is SHOCKED SHOCKED I SAY, but says yes, and he’s like HUH?? and she’s like I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU PROPOSED and he’s like WHAAAAA? But he has a wee bit of amnesia, so he’s like, huh I guess I bought her an engagement ring BUT BUT, then he finds his receipt for a $300 purchase. Which is deffo not a Tiffany’s diamond ring. But he…just keeps on letting her believe all this and they are engaged. On the flip side, Ethan’s girlfriend opens the earrings and is like ‘…oh cool…’ because they were deffo expecting to get engaged, and he doesn’t say anything either because the aforementioned super frustrating writing!
Luckily, Ethan and Zoey (forget her character name whatever) had met so they keep in touch and he gathers info about the ring (instead of just talking straight of course) and they have a very believable spark and of course they are gonna fall for each other! I like that they are great characters, and I like that Ethan’s PLL girlfriend is also great. Like they don’t make her a villain or anything, she’s absolutely great. Gary on the other hand is a real low-life so we root for him to get the boot.
Out of our Christmas romcom checklist, the best surprise twist is that our child actress, Ethan’s daughter, was actually great! She was adorable and added real value. Along with our leads, their story was truly enjoyable and fully believable. LOVES THEM.
MIDNIGHT AT THE MAGNOLIA
I didn’t even know this was a Christmas movie given that lackluster title, but luckily Netflix recommended it to me given my (gestures broadly to all of the above) viewing history. And thank goodness, because I think this one is my winner!!! M at the M follows our best friends duo, Blondie and Lad (best I can do), who host a popular Chicago radio show. So right away we know we’re in a special zone of BIG CITY LIVING! Woot! Such a treat!
Another special uniqueness? Christmas is already over in this one! It’s still the season, but now we are leading up to New Years Eve instead. Likes it. We learn that Blondie and Lad have been BFFs since high school, but never dated. Or so we think at first! For their big NYEve party (which is also broadcast live to all those radio show fans that spend the holiday listening to the radio), they are going to introduce their significant others to their families, because that’s something that their fans know will be funny? interesting? Doesn’t matter, because the gf and bf break up with them. Oopsie! So our duo thinks, what can we do that the fans will love and will get the higher-ups’ attention so we can maybe get syndicated? (love the stakes btw.) They decide to pretend to be a couple, finally, knowing that everyoneeee will love it.
Unforch, Blondie really loves it, because she has secretly always loved Lad Boy. But he has been too scared and too stupid to know what to do with his emotions. It’s actually a good, believable story, buoyed by a great supporting cast that had real emotional beats that I fully bought. I loved the characters, I was moved by their sads, I was happy with their happies. WINNER!
LIGHTNING ROUND
These are movies you might be interested in watching this year so I’ll mention them, but I watched them in years past.
A CASTLE FOR CHRISTMAS: Cary Elwes’ and Brook Shields’ talent is in that netherworld with Lindsay Lohan’s and with all those unmatched socks, but even so, we watch and we enjoy this charmless slog of a rom senza com.
A CHRISTMAS PRINCE: This trilogy (if not more) is as cringey as they come but super lovable. Go for it.
THE PRINCESS SWITCH: Vanessa Hudgens in a dual role (the later sequel with her in three parts is a turd) is almost as good as she was in Tick, Tick Boom. I love these dumb movies. Perfection.
THE HOLIDATE: Emma Roberts is great in this sharp comedy that has some scenes that are hilarious to watch with your parents and not at all awkward, don’t worry, anyway overall this is one of the best.
LOVE HARD: I hate this one a lot. We’re supposed to root for the guy who catfished Nina Dobrev just because he has low self-esteem? WHO DOESN’T. WHO FUCKING DOESN’T. Don’t catfish people. Also just learn how to rock climb for Paxton Hall-Yoshida, learn how to do ANYTHING FOR HIM.
THE KNIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS: Okay although Vanessa Hudgens is the queen of the better tier of these, this one makes no sense and not just because of the time travel. He’d be like, so confused. And so short.
SPIRITED: Okay well obviously I did watch this one this season because it just came out, but all I have to say about it is, while it was enjoyable (when is Will Ferrell not the best??), it suffers from the Mean Girls Musical HUGE annoying af problem, which is that there are 5 songs too many that all sound the same, and that if they cut an hour, it would actually be great. I HATE when a lack of editing keeps something from being great. It’s one of the most frustrating things. I can hear you saying ISN’T THAT IRONIC since I don’t edit these posts, but these aren’t supposed to be great pieces of art, these are my rants, enjoy.
I can hear my mom going ‘but what about The Holiday!!!!’ but this list is about the shitty made-for-TV genre, not Oscar-worthy classics.
