What’s that? You want more movie reviews in a series? No? Well. You’re getting it anyway. And while this is the second year I’m doing this series, it feels very different this year. The holidays just hit different during the time of Covid, don’t they? Half of the country is staying home, not seeing their families, and putting up their sad tiny Christmas trees/holiday decorations for their celebration of choice. And it’s sad and lonely. And the other half is just… going about their life. Like nothing is wrong.
Yeah, I’m bitter. And these reviews might reflect that a little bit. But you know what they say about Covid. It is what it is.
So on that cheerful note, let’s talk about The Holidate. Which is a movie.
Just as a quick reminder, this is how this series works. I’m not going to rate and review movies based on the usual way we look at and critique movies. Why? Because Christmas movies are in a category all on their own, and as such they shouldn’t be judged against, you know, normal movies, because the purpose of a Christmas movie is not the same as the purpose of a normal movie (I’m trying to fight against myself to not say “real” movie, because I guess Christmas movies are real movies… but anyway).
So I will be rating these movies on a score of 1-10 in 5 categories: Romance, Morality, Music, Christmas Spirit, and Warmth.
The Holidate is a Netflix film starring Emma Roberts, Luke Bracey, and Kristin Chenoweth. Ever since her boyfriend broke up with her, Sloane (Emma Roberts) has been totally over the holidays. She’s not interested in finding someone new to spend the holidays with her, but she’s also totally over her family’s questions about why she’s still single. That’s where Jackson (Luke Bracey) comes in. The two strike up a deal to be each other’s dates to all holiday events but not have a relationship with one another outside of that. Obviously things get complicated and they end up falling in love. Chenoweth plays exactly who you’d expect her to play: Sloane’s drunk and horny Aunt Susan. Lord help us.
Let’s just run this bad boy through the Christmas movie rating machine.
Romance: 7/10. These two have chemistry and they have banter and they’re attractive or whatever. So much so that you can’t really buy the fact that they’re not hooking up immediately when this whole deal starts. Like why? How? I’m docking romance points because this movie has the typical romantic comedy problem in which the movie has to force conflict in the relationship because there’s no real reason why these two people can’t be together. Dumb.
Morality: 5/10. I can’t really get a read on this movie or what the message is supposed to be. Which is not good for a Christmas movie, which is usually supposed to be pretty heavy on morality. On the one hand, there seems to be a message that families shouldn’t pressure people to be in a relationship and it’s totally fine to be a single woman. But on the other hand, Sloane seems pretty miserable and is clearly only single because she can’t stop pining over her ex. Not because she’s actually empowered by being single, no matter what she says.
Additionally, I can’t decide if these people are, like, nice people? Or bad people? I really don’t know much about them at all. At one point, Sloane is at a New Year’s Eve party and a woman is crying because she spilled something all over her dress on the night her boyfriend is supposed to propose to her. And Sloane agrees to switch dresses with her. But I can’t really tell why Sloane agreed to do this, as it doesn’t seem congruous with her character at other moments in the movie. And we don’t see Sloane actually agree to do this. We just see the woman crying about it in the bathroom and then we see this…
So clearly she is cool with the dress switch, but we don’t really see why. Probably because the writers couldn’t make sense of it either.
Additionally, there’s the problem of Kristin Chenoweth’s character. I guess in the end, she learns the “error of her ways” and decides to be in a relationship with a guy she really cares about. But again, this undermines the “message” of the movie. And also before Aunt Susan is in a relationship, she’s a big ole mess.
So what is this movie about? No idea. It’s a dumb movie.
Music: 2/10. I couldn’t tell you a single song in this movie. It wasn’t memorable at all. These are two mercy points because I’m assuming there was music.
Christmas Spirit: 5/10. This movie doesn’t really score high on Christmas spirit. Because as much as this movie is advertised as a Christmas movie, most of it takes place not on Christmas. Like Valentine’s Day. And St. Patrick’s Day. And Cinco De Mayo. You get the idea. Is this a Christmas movie? It is because I’m told it is by the advertising, but that’s about it. The only reason this is getting 5 Christmas spirit points is because the big confession of love at the end is done at the mall in front of Christmas carolers. And really what’s more Christmassy than carolers and the mall?
Warmth: 2/10. This is going to be a tough category this year, because clearly I don’t have very many fuzzy Christmas feels to go around this holiday season. But this movie gave me no warm fuzzies. It was predictable and not very entertaining. And I’m going to go ahead and say it. After seeing Chenoweth in a few movies now, I don’t think she’s very funny. She added nothing to this. And she certainly couldn’t save it.
So… how did this movie rank as a Christmas movie? Do we even want to know? Okay, let’s do the math.
21/50 = 42%/F. Yikes. Have I ever rated a Christmas movie this low? This one was bad, people. It’s on Netflix, but just skip it. Trust me.
Well, we’re off to a great start, huh? I’ll see you a little later in the week for movie #2.