The first time I watched Falling for Christmas, I was surprised to enjoy such a corny Lindsay Lohan Christmas comedy. Since I’ve spent this year watching a whole breadth of comedies, I’m not surprised anymore.

Honestly? The setup is easy to dismiss if you are around Lohan’s age and kinda cringed away from the public nature of her meltdown. Plus, culture in the time when Lohan and I were young is notoriously mean. Most of us had to come on a journey to accept movies with sincere messages after growing up on the sarcasm and apologetic self-effacement of the 00s. And some of us particularly immature kids needed to realize public meltdowns deserve sympathy and privacy and a thousand opportunities to try again, not tabloid snark. (Sorry Lindsay. I wasn’t cool.)

Sincere Christmas romance with Lindsay Lohan pings a lot of my primal “ugh, eye roll” nerves, is what I’m saying, so I guess Falling for Christmas had to sneak up on me in order to earn my love. That’s my fault, not yours, Hallmark-like romance genre.

Yes, it’s corny, but let’s put that at the forefront: Holidays are a good time to tell corny stories about falling in love.

Once you accept corny as a feature instead of a bug, there is nothing about Falling for Christmas left to dismiss. The more obvious special effects are funny. The performances are sometimes cartoonish but always earnest. There are some decent needle drops with songs I don’t recognize, but possess exactly the right amount of drama for the hero to gaze after the heroine with tears shimmering in his eyes.

Even the hero won me over. This is one of the dearest romance heroes, and you know I hate boys. He’s a daddy, and a little bit of a Daddy, and he brings his GAZING INTENSELY gaze with the best of them.

The part is appropriate for Lohan’s skills, warmly, and she does such a cute job transforming from bratty heiress to amnesiac flannel mommy.

It’s got the trope I love where they fall in love with one another’s families (mostly Lohan falling for his family).

Lohan’s ex goes into the wilderness and falls in love with a bear poacher. No, not a poacher who kills bears. A poacher who is a bear.

Plus, there is a so-magical-he-almost-seems-scary leering Santa Claus disguised as a strangely intense old man, and I love this EVERY TIME.

THERE’S A SILLY CREDIT BLOOPERS SEQUENCE!

Basically this is exactly what you’d expect, and if you like the tropes, you’ll love this. It’s a good execution of well-trod small town holiday warmth and YEAH I’m probably just going to give it a higher rating every year I watch it, even though my inner sarcastic teenager thinks I’ve grown up *so lame*.

(Image credit: Netflix)

God, I am fighting with my urge to shit talk this movie right now. It’s lovely. It’s fine! It’s cute and Christmasy. Emilia Clarke radiates. Michelle Yeoh was showing her comedy chops before the world noticed her comedy chops. It has a nice message. It’s a romcom without wealth centered, which I always want.

Don’t shit talk the movie, Sara. It’s so nice.

~

Okay, first of all, I have seen Emilia Clarke play three (3) roles where men are fridged for her character development.

On one hand, nice. Way to be. Writers don’t fridge men nearly enough for the sake of a woman’s development.

On the other hand, two of these male characters weren’t played by white actors (Henry Golding here and Jason Momoa on Game of Thrones) and in the third (Me Before You) the hero’s disability is central to the story/identity.

I can’t get excited about misandry when it’s all…weird.

(Are you telling me I shouldn’t *ever* get excited about misandry? *Weird*.)

I think it would balance out if Emilia Clarke fridged four perfectly healthy white guys for her character development. Hey casting directors, agent, whoever needs to make this happen—could she like, fridge Chalamet or something?

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Henry Golding shows up to look perfect and shiny and handsomely fix all of her problems. He is wisdom, he is grace, he is romantic but sexually nonthreatening. He’s been inside Emilia Clarke for a year and she didn’t have a clue until he appeared to deliver his Christmas message. “What if you DIDN’T drink our heart to death?”

Is it a happily ever after if they’ll be together for as long as this transplant holds out?

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It’s really cute though! It ticks the boxes I want ticked for a romcom…almost completely.

There is a strong message about hope.

It’s also, critically, mostly about the woman (boys are gross).

Love heals! Love wins!

We have adorable secondary romance, there is suggestion of a better future for our heroine, the family is important.

It’s just.

Okay.

I really don’t want anyone in the relationship to be dead. Okay???

~

Is Ghost a romcom?

Is an ending happy if we know the ghost gets what he wants and the woman moves on happily?

There is a lot to be said in defense of grief as an element of both Christmas movies and romances. In a long life, we should all be so lucky as to lose a great many loves, and grief is an ongoing process that accumulates as the years accrue.

Grief feels very much like love. It’s the hurting side of love—love that is lost and wandering.

Not all horror movies scare us; sometimes they’re just exciting. Not all romcoms have to make everything better; love can be intermingled with sadness, and that is healing for a lot of people.

I can say these things rationally, nodding along with myself as I type.

“Yes, of course, there’s no reason why Henry Golding shouldn’t be dead in this romcom,” I say reasonably.

And yet.

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I like what I like and what I don’t like is this. At least, not on the first watch. I can imagine why other people might like it, but my grudge for the concept is strong, and I just didn’t enjoy watching it.

Part of the issue for me is probably the issue that attracted Emilia Clarke to the role. She’s got severe chronic health issues. A heroine with complicated medical trauma might be compelling for an actress who has had plenty her own.

For me, it’s more repelling. The song “Last Christmas” goes from being a happy romp to a haunting story literally about organs. I’m sitting around wondering if the movie when the movie is going to dump hospital scenes on me so I feel awful. Maybe I should have watched the movie in my therapist’s office?

~

Oh, but it’s so cute. I don’t think there’s anything *wrong* with it.

I really need my romantic couple to survive, though. Or I need a lot more fantasy/goth type elements to make the dying bit hot instead of sad. I don’t know! This isn’t hot. I just feel sad.

And personal preference isn’t any reason to shit talk a perfectly lovely movie.

Don’t shit talk the nice movie, Sara. Just give it three stars and move on.

Seven years after 10 Things I Hate About You debuted as the best-ever adaptation of Taming of the Shrew, She’s the Man brought us a lovely adaptation of Twelfth Night. It’s not as witty or distinctive as 10 Things, but it’s great on its own merits.

Twelfth Night has always been one of my favorites thanks to silly gender-bending hijinks, but I actually didn’t watch She’s the Man until 2023. I was the right age and demographic in 2006–plus I love(d) Shakespeare adaptations–but in this version, Viola is a soccer player, and I was actively allergic to anything remotely resembling sports. I’m not kidding you, I wore dog collars and forked my tongue at the football players. (I’m so sorry, hometown.)

If I had known very little of this movie involves soccer treated like sports, I would have watched and loved it. In retrospect, I really wish this had been my cross-dressing school movie rewatch, rather than the far crueler Sorority Boys.

The story is what you expect. Viola disguises herself as her brother to prove herself among male soccer players, then falls in love with her male roommate, played by Channing Tatum. Viola becomes a go-between for the guy she likes and the girl he likes, but the girl he likes actually likes Viola, and this is how we have fun you guys. This is gay and we love this.

I’m on the team that says Shakespeare knew what he was doing (wiki). I wouldn’t leap to calling Shakespeare bisexual; modern labels of sexuality don’t apply outside modernity, period. Throughout much of history, passionate sexual/romantic friendships among all genders were common, especially among the liberation of the artistic classes.

Point being, Shakespeare got mischievous, sexy jollies out of the cross-dressing stuff, and the material is one long cheeky wink-wink. Would you ever wonder why I love the Twelfth Night? Everyone needs to know being gay is hilarious.

ANYWAY, since this adaptation is from an era with such a prevailing culture of homophobia and transphobia, it’s miraculous that She’s the Man only spends a *little* time saying “no homo.” The behavior from a guy like Channing Tatum in She’s the Man gives me all kinds of red flags, but he kinda has no choice. His character has to set the 2006-major-media-expectations of boundaries, which means acting like it’s gross that he’s having intimate moments with this hot little twink.

Yeah, Amanda Bines, you killed it as a hot little twink. I understand Bines struggled with gender dysphoria creating this movie and I wanna express full sympathy. That said, in the 2000s, I was murdering people to try to date girls who looked Amanda Bines as a boy. When I say “t-boy energy,” with all the energy and confidence, that’s what I’m talking about.

Half the time, I could almost convince myself I was actually watching a movie about a t-boy just trying to pass in college with his afab body, lying about the orifice tampons pair with, hiding his binder, and putting up with intolerant relatives. I honestly want movies with this exact level of stakes and tone with cute trans kids (but without the slimy aura of “no homo”). You wouldn’t have to change that much for Tatum’s character to realize he’s in love with Bines regardless of gender presentation and be relaxed about it. A lot of us find guys who love the rainbow of gender identity within a single person. 🙂

Bines is a really fun comedian to watch, too. She has a full-body goofiness that looks like a cartoon, and her energy is exactly what the movie needs. Sometimes I get anxious watching fake-identity movies! She’s the Man keeps things funny instead of stressful.

Of course I think the movie would be better with a Viola/Olivia endgame, but I waited until the end of the review to say that, so I deserve a pat on the back.