Moira Macdonald
The Seattle Times
Dear readers, it’s the season of joy and goodwill and new Netflix Christmas movies, in which people in wildly overdecorated houses navigate the holidays to find love, family harmony, and, quite possibly, one whopper of an electric bill. It’s a Seattle Times tradition to round up and review these movies every year, and though this year Netflix inexplicably only had a couple on offer, I watched a few other new ones on other streaming services and rated them all on a scale of one to five Christmas lights.
A happy and meticulously decorated holiday season to all!
“A Christmas Frequency”
(Hulu)
The premise: Kenzie (Ansley Gordon), a young radio producer, sets up a series of blind dates for her boss Brooke (Denise Richards), but finds herself attracted to one of them, a handsome journalist named Ben (Jonathan Stoddard). So who will be Kenzie’s date for the station’s Christmas Eve party?
The setting: Snowy Ann Arbor, Mich., where cozy radio stations share office buildings with mysterious lifestyle publications where “features writers” such as Ben have cavernous offices (Ben’s is large enough to hold not one but THREE fully decorated Christmas trees; can I please work for Ben’s paper?) and everyone wears suits and fills out paper expense reports. Apparently, there is some sort of time-travel device in the building’s elevator.
The naughty: It’s a little hard to imagine that “Breakfast with Brooke,” the exceedingly dull radio show at the center of this movie, could possibly be popular with anyone.
The nice: The ever-smiling Gordon is ridiculously charming as Kenzie, and you find yourself rooting for her and Ben (who signals interest in Kenzie by donning a very Colin-Firth-in-“Love Actually” turtleneck) despite yourself.
The décor: It’s impossible to watch this movie without feeling very, very sorry for the interns who presumably had to decorate the offices where most of the plot takes place, as you have seriously NEVER seen so much Christmas cheer. It’s kind of terrifying. You wonder how Kenzie and Brooke’s boss ever gets any work done, considering his desk is literally covered with garlands, Nutcrackers and various holiday tableaux.
Rating: 2 1/2 lights (out of 5)
“Reporting for Christmas”
(Hulu)
The premise: Mary (Tamara Feldman) is a reporter for a Chicago television station who’s sent to a small town in Iowa to produce a Christmastime puff piece on a toy factory there — and, once she gazes into the blue eyes of the factory owner’s son, Blake (Matt Trudeau), things get, well, puffier.
The setting: Brunswick, Iowa, the sort of fictional town where snow falls everywhere except on sidewalks and roads, and everyone’s full of good cheer and can produce a candy-cane-bedecked hot drink at the drop of a Santa hat.
The naughty: If you cannot see where things are going with Blake and the Thomas Kinkade-like paintings that fill his house, perhaps you have had too much eggnog. And why does this movie go to all the trouble of elaborately foreshadowing the pending bathroom remodel in Mary’s lovely Chicago home and then cruelly not show it to us? I felt rather invested in that bathroom.
The nice: OK, I laughed out loud when we first met Blake (spoiler alert: Everyone at this toy factory is very handsome), who instantly causes Mary to look as if she’s just opened a very nice Christmas present indeed.
The décor: Mary stays in a quaint inn whose halls are decked with a vengeance, including a rather scary life-size toy soldier in the living room that I wouldn’t want to encounter on a dark winter’s night. Blake lives in a perfectly decorated home with stockings picturesquely hanging from the mantel and Christmas tchotchkes everywhere, as all handsome single men do.
Rating: 2 lights (out of 5)
“Best. Christmas. Ever!”
(Netflix)
The premise: Charlotte (Heather Graham) has long felt that her college friend Jackie (Brandy Norwood) has a life that sounds too good to be true. And, thanks to Charlotte’s scheming kid — Charlotte has, it appears, entrusted the navigation of their planned holiday trip to her sister’s house to her grade-school-age son, as one does — the entire family ends up on Jackie’s doorstep for Christmas.
The setting: The fictional Hadley Falls, Utah, a picture-perfect place with outdoor Christmas pageants and enormous suburban homes that look, according to Charlotte’s kid, “like Wayne Manor.” (Charlotte’s kid is kind of annoying, as is his truly terrifying stuffed animal, Monkey Bob. I kept waiting to hear that Monkey Bob was actually The True Spirit of Christmas or something, but “Best. Christmas. Ever!” — despite its excessive punctuation — is not that clever.)
The naughty: Why are this year’s Christmas comedies so not funny? This movie is quite earnest, and far be it from me to be a Grinch when Brandy starts crooning “Let It Snow,” but I was hoping for a few more laughs.
The nice: OK, I did laugh when Jackie’s extremely hot husband Valentino (Matt Cedeño) gazes at Charlotte, and Charlotte’s hair suddenly starts blowing around like she’s in a shampoo commercial. And there’s a hot-air-balloon sequence that’s pretty cute.
The décor: Not only is Jackie’s massive house decorated as if she’s planning a Christmas magazine shoot, but at one point everyone goes out on an outing to buy a Christmas tree — with nobody mentioning the fact that the house already has multiple fully decorated ones already.
Rating: 2 lights (out of 5)
“How to Fall in Love by the Holidays”
(Roku)
The premise: Nora Winters (Teri Hatcher), CEO of a lifestyle brand (i.e. she has a very nice apartment), needs to write a column about falling in love over Christmas in order to woo a new corporate partner. The process of doing this requires the presence of a handsome photographer with the very rom-com name of Jack Paxton (Dan Payne) who is deeply sarcastic about the whole thing and is NOT going to end up kissing Nora under the mistletoe, oh no he’s not … wait, sorry, I’m just kidding, somebody please pour me some eggnog.
The setting: Technically it’s Manhattan, but the sidewalks look far too suspiciously tidy and perfectly shoveled.
The naughty: Though Hatcher (“Desperate Housewives”) is charming, this movie is a real slog and full of unrecognizable human behavior, such as Nora wearing pajamas with feathers on them (I don’t mean a feather print, I mean actual feathers) for an evening alone at home, and people gathering for something called a Christmas Tree Skate, which involves roller-skating in a very small circle around a room that has Christmas trees in it.
The nice: Jack has really mastered his pop-of-color scarf game.
The décor: Christmas trees, garlands and miscellaneous holiday glitter abound in every scene, and I particularly appreciate how the filmmakers are careful to make sure that every crucial outdoor moment happens in front of a nicely swagged fence.
Rating: 1 1/2 lights (out of 5)
“Candy Cane Lane”
(Prime Video)
The premise: Nice family man Chris Carver (Eddie Murphy), depressed over being laid off from his job just before Christmas, is determined to win his neighborhood’s Christmas decorating contest — but unwittingly makes a deal with an evil elf (Jillian Bell) to do so. Pandemonium, of the holiday-themed variety, ensues.
The setting: El Segundo, Calif., on a picturesque street where the neighbors are seemingly competing to have their lawn display seen from space.
The naughty: This movie feels at least half an hour too long, and gets awfully chaotic in its final act.
The nice: There’s some genuinely funny stuff here, particularly “The Twelve Days of Christmas” coming to life. (Those lords can really leap! And seriously, you do not want seven swans a-swimming in your pool.) And it was sweet to watch Chris — who loves the holidays so much his kids are named Nick, Holly and Joy — learn that “it’s not about what you have on the outside of your house, it’s about who you have inside with you.”
The décor: Chris’ handmade wooden yard decorations are weirdly unfestive and a bit scary, but Kringle’s — the store operated by the aforementioned evil elf, who clearly knows a few things about merchandising and made me wonder if all Christmas stores are run by evil elves — is a glorious explosion of holiday froufrou.
Rating: 2 1/2 stars (out of 5)
“Family Switch”
(Netflix)
The premise: No, this has nothing to do with “The Princess Switch,” an entirely separate Netflix Christmas movie franchise in which a baker and a princess discover that they are non-evil twins. (Until they find their triplet in movie No. 3, but that’s another story, and why is it taking so long for someone to bring me some eggnog?) Anyway, here we have the Walker family — mom Jess (Jennifer Garner), dad Bill (Ed Helms), daughter CC (Emma Myers), son Wyatt (Brady Noon) — who finds connection through the experience of getting body-switched at Christmastime thanks to the meddling of Rita Moreno in a newsboy cap. (Note to Hollywood: Can every movie, Christmas or otherwise, please include Rita Moreno in a newsboy cap? Thank you.)
The naughty: Yes, you have seen this particular plot before, but “Family Switch” at least has the decency to poke fun at this fact, via a conversation that manages to reference “Big,” “Freaky Friday,” “17 Again” and “13 Going on 30” in less than 15 seconds.
The nice: OK, I have NOT seen a movie before in which a baby and a dog switched bodies (at least I don’t think I have, but life is a rich and varied journey full of things that one forgets), and it’s pretty hilarious to watch the CGI-assisted dog toddle on two feet while the kid laps from a dish and chases around after a toy. And Garner becoming her own teenage daughter is a pleasure, as is the name of the garage band Bill plays in (Dad or Alive).
The décor: Rather subtle by Netflix Christmas movie standards — this movie treats the holiday as a backdrop rather than a plot point — but pleasantly festive, particularly the family’s matching red plaid PJs on Christmas morning.
Rating: 3 lights (out of 5)
_______________
©2023 The Seattle Times. Visit seattletimes.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.