Falling for Christmas, Netflix’s newest holiday movie, has almost as much fall as Christmas. As wealthy young woman Sierra (Lindsay Lohan) is given a ride up a snowy mountain, she slips back on her skis and falls at the top. It’s the kind of failure that should lead to years of rehabilitation, if not outright death, but in the universe of Christmas movies, Sierra can’t remember who she is. He’s slumped back throughout the movie, slumped in an armchair, when a raccoon surprises him at the window of a humble mountain place where Hot Local Dad Jake (Glee’s Chord Overstreet) rescued him. You think they will try to make all the movies good, but the stunt works, like the movie, never.
Mix in a random raccoon, bad slapstick, and terrible Netflix product placement, and the fall for Christmas is a complete mess. Oh, and it’s also the perfect Christmas movie. Journalist Jonathan Dean tweeted: “Look at the new Lindsay Lohan – down for Christmas. Scared. No one in the movie wanted to be in the movie. Understandably, there is no idea how to tell a story. However, bad news. Complex decisions about applications. Do something superhuman. Highly recommended. I haven’t laughed that hard in years. 5/5.
As a resident connoisseur of goofy Christmas movies (see here), I understand the appeal of Netflix’s romantic movies. There’s the funny (The Prince of Christmas), the quiet (Holidate), and the WTF-do-I-just-watch (A Knight Before Christmas). Falling in love at Christmas is somewhere in between. In no way does it try to rock the boat (as in most Christmas rom-coms, it’s rushed), the dialogue is bland, and the supporting characters are a piece of cake. paper (snowflake). It’s a Christmas cavalcade of clichés: spoiled heirs, dead mothers and dodgy CGI.
But for all its faults, Christmas’ failure has one reason: the Lohan thing. We’ve seen the actor go from child molestation to temper tantrums, court appearances and addiction problems. There’s a lot of love for Lohan – we want to see her happy and doing what she’s good at again. The movie, with Sierra’s red hair and Mean Girls Easter Eggs, seems determined to play on that appetite. It might not be an Oscar-winning performance from Lohan (honestly, I think Saoirse Ronan would have a hard time getting the script to be weak), but it’s better not to play around with Netflix romcoms. . . Falling in love at Christmas is like that unexpected fall: it’s horrible in theory, but it’s fun and exciting if you turn to it.
