Between the deluge of Christmas romcoms, Netflix has another movie with a bigname this year. After the success of the three parts of The Princess Switch_with Vanessa Hudgens comes the streaming service with the return of grandedame Lindsay Lohan. Falling for Christmas (Netflix) is an amalgamationof Christmas movie clichés – millionaire’s daughter with amnesia, a singlewidower – meant to work on the laughter. Lohan’s role evokes vague memories ofher quality and enthusiasm _mean girls and Freaky Friday. This moviecertainly isn’t that good, but it’s a great opener to the Lohan issance.
HBO Max takes a stab at Christmas glory with A Hollywood Christmas , ameta-romcom about the Christmas movie department of a studio about to close.You can’t miss the parallels between the movie being played and the movieyou’re watching. They are named by the characters every few minutes. As aresult, the original premise loses all possibilities to become a reallysuccessful comedy. Still, in the rom-com department, worse things are onoffer.
Strikingly charming titles come from Amazon Prime Video this year. Like Something from Tiffany ‘s (Amazon), a film from Reese Witherspoon’sproduction house. Equally striking is the number of Christmas movies featuringa dead mother or dead husband to help the story along. There are already morethan six in this list. Something from Tiffany ‘s has both and is about asingle father and the owner of a cafe. Chaos ensues when the owner’s friend ishit by a taxi and rushes to the widower’s aid. During the rescue, the bagsfrom their Tiffany’s purchase get mixed up.
Your Christmas Or Mine (Amazon) also uses the clichéd switch plot, butthis time with humans. Miscommunication and a cleverly timed blizzard leavetwo drama students to spend Christmas at each other’s parents’ house, butseparately. The movie with Asa Butterfield ( Sex Education ) is pepperedwith British humour, charm and sentiment (yes, late mother).
Warm tears
Actually, Christmas and romkoms are a curious hybrid. Why should you find alife partner for the festival of lights? Christmas is all about being togetherwith family and friends, right? And open your heart to the stranger? Thehandkerchief film, the weep , fits better. Who wouldn’t cry over anattractive but single bestselling author who has to clean out his deadmother’s house and then meets an adopted woman who is looking for her unknownmother ( ** The Noel Diary** on Netflix).
The prettiest weep this year Julesstorm (Netflix). In this Norwegianmosaic series by Per-Olav Sørensen (from earlier Christmas series Hjem tilJul ) a group of passengers are stuck at Oslo Airport during a snow storm,preventing them from reaching their Christmas destination in time. That leadsto confrontations between grumpy people and nice people, with the grumpy oneseventually saying sorry. We follow a spoiled pop star, an abandoned dog, aretired pianist, a boy with an eye disease. But the tears really start to flowat the story of the sick bartender and the prodigal daughter.
Read also: Who makes all those Christmas movies anyway? (And why?)
Julesstorm by the way introduces a black Santa Claus. Why does Santa alwayshave to be a straight white man?
The bosses of an American Santa Claus course also ask themselves that questionin the heartwarming documentary Santa Camp (HBO Max). They actively seekout less traditional students, such as a trans Santa, a black Santa, and amentally challenged Santa, who doesn’t talk, but is a very good “How! How!How!” can call. The new students are received somewhat awkwardly and awkwardlyin the Santa Camp, but they are eventually embraced. However, the troublebegins outside the camp, where conservative Americans are not waiting for aninclusive Christmas. The scariest thing is a trans Santa who is besieged byfascist Christians. If that’s okay.
Of course it will be fine.
Fa la la la la
The warm sounds of Christmas carols also fly around your ears. The twotraditional musicals on offer, Scrooge: A Christmas Carol (Netflix) andSpirited (Apple) are for the real enthusiast. They are actually quitelong. Where Spirited puts an original spin on the classic Scrooge story – agruesome businessman (Ryan Reynolds) is helped by the ghost of Christmas (WillFerrel) to get back on track – follows Scrooge virtually the original.Although there are a few new elements (dog) to raise child-friendliness. Itdoesn’t necessarily get scary, or really evil and they certainly haven’tforgotten the moral lesson.
Spirited is a two-hour assault on the senses with a huge budget and evenmore ambition. A gigantic song and dance number starts every few minutes. Forfans of Will Ferrells Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Sage andRyan Reynolds humor this is a gem. For the rest, this is a great musical seat,if you go along with the slow pace.
The two musical romkoms Holiday Harmony (HBO) and Christmas With You(Netflix) stick to the standard Christmas movie formula. A talented singerhelps village children celebrate Christmas, and falls in love at the sametime. The difference is that the singer in Holiday Harmony a star in themaking, and the singer in Christmas With You already famous. Christmas WithYou is the better film, with the golden edge that the Mexican and PuertoRican culture are intertwined through the story. The film hits all the rightnotes and brings back 90s star Freddie Prinze Jr. as a piano dad.
Save Christmas!
Children’s Christmas movies always have the same premise: Christmas is underthreat, and the heroes must save the party. Indeed, just like in it_Sinterklaas news_ , but with clean cheeks. In the whodunnit A ChristmasMystery (HBO Max), for example, Pleasant Bay’s magical Christmas bells havebeen stolen. In Christmas at the mistletoe farm (Netflix) Dad wants tosell the inherited farm, just when the kids are having such a good time there.
Read also: Sinterklaas kills the Dutch Christmas film
Often the spirit of Christmas gets in the way because children have becomeindifferent and greedy. Like in the series The Santa Clauses (Disney):Due to mass apostasy, Santa loses his magical powers. The series builds on thethree previous films in which a commoner accidentally kills Santa Claus and istherefore called to office himself. Now that man wants to retire himself.Looking for a successor, he comes across a CEO of an Amazon-like company thatalso delivers parcels around the world. The candidate is played by Kal Penn(Kalpen Modi), so the new Santa is of Indian American descent.
They have never celebrated Christmas on the asteroid Knowhere, so the questionis whether the celebration should be saved there. Hero Peter Quill remembersChristmas from his childhood on Earth, and his alien friends are eager to givehim a Christmas just like old times. In the cheerful, energetic Marvel filmGuardians of the Galaxy: The Holiday Special (Disney) two of them go toEarth to do some Christmas shopping. The film actor Kevin Bacon is also ontheir wish list. But the film actor resists his kidnapping.