I’m about to get real lecturey about a movie I love. I think that “it doesn’t have to be that deep” fully applies to Home Alone and a lot of flicks like it. My emotional review of Home Alone is mostly a lot of charmed gushing about a smartly written screenplay, the Extremely Adorable Brothers Culkin, and loving the random monologues from John Candy as the polka guy.

It’s still one of my favorite Christmas movies, so I’ve really taken it for granted these last thirty-four years. It’s fun for me to take a look with fresher eyes from the perspective of the more jaded adult I’ve become. But while I write this stuff out, it doesn’t change the fact I’ve grown up with Home Alone, and it’s absolutely iconic in my heart.

~

Back when Sara was a sweet little two-year-old sprog with more interest in the taste of carpet fluff than story analysis, John Hughes and Chris Columbus gave us a Christmas classic in Home Alone. Young Kevin McCallister’s family takes a vacation, accidentally leaving him behind, which means he’s the only one available to defend the house against invasion when a pair of robbers attack.

Recently, The New York Times did an analysis of the McCallisters’ wealth. It’s a fun read which concludes, rather neutrally, that this family belongs to the 1%. There’s a lot of speculation about the jobs of the parents, and the novelization reportedly lists them as a fashion designer and Business Guy.

Because the original screenwriters didn’t intend to look at the McCallister parents in this way, any speculation about criminality as a source of their wealth is just a mischievous reinterpretation of the story. It’s trying to tap into the unreality of the scenario (robbers like The Sticky Bandits aren’t really a thing) to come up with a plausible excuse and acknowledging that a lotta people get rich through criminal means, whether it’s Business Guy-flavored or Sticky Bandit flavored. I support this reading.

That said, I don’t think it’s possible the McCallisters could ever be criminal; the movie is too much a fantasy from the perspective of affluent white America, which constantly thinks it’s playing cops and robbers.

Kevin’s preparation shows how he can outsmart any trouble, and we know that a certain type of guy loves the fantasy of power from prepping. Prepping has taken hold in more communities during 21st century turmoil, but in the 90s, it was really only *one* kind of guy. Though Kevin is a child, he’s written by adult men, and it’s significant that Kevin regards himself as the Man of the House. He’s in control and prepared for disaster. Like home invasion.

If you google statistics about home invasion, you’ll see some alarmingly-tinted information from home security companies and insurance companies. We turn to the Bureau of Justice, with all its own biases, which shared in 2010 that fully 65% of home invasions happens between people who know each other previously. The most vulnerable people are single moms, those living in smaller apartment units, and rentals, especially occupied by nonwhite people. Places are it’s often targeted because a prior relationship let the burglar know there are guns or drugs there. Affluent family homes are among the least vulnerable.

Burglary statistics paint a rather expected picture of the economic situation in America. Property crime springs from hardship, and it’s something the lower class is mostly dealing with. Regardless of profession, the McCallisters are certainly not one of the more vulnerable targets.

Yet there is a certain attraction to this fear of home invasions among the affluent. You see it pop up in movies a lot, like The Strangers (the classic example), Panic Room, Hush, The Purge…

Actually, let’s talk The Purge. For every guy who understands its intent as a grim satire about the reality we live in, like WH40k, you get a guy who enjoys the fantasy of permissible brutality, like WH40k. The Purge is an appealing aesthetic to people who may also enjoy the whole zombie shooter genre, where the visuals of mass harm against human people is divested of genuine impact. You could compare 80s action movies stripping away the consequences of violence (like John McClane getting to fight ~terrorists~ in Die Hard) to the permissible violence of The Purge.

This is an awfully intense direction to go with analysis of a kids’ Christmas movie, especially when the violence is intended to be cartoony and goofy. But the traps that Kevin places to protect himself from burglars, and the matter of asymmetric power, makes Kevin’s plight pretty similar to John McClane’s. Not to mention that Kevin commits some real brutality against these guys: in reality, the first fall or two would have probably killed them.

I’m not taking the side of The Sticky Bandits here, even playfully. Kevin’s adorable. Team Kevin. But The Sticky Bandits don’t really have any sort of real-life analog. There isn’t a disaffected bear and his post-twink death twink rolling around in a van casing your local 1% neighborhood, especially since everyone and their mother now has a Ring camera. We don’t have a sense that these Bandits have any motive beyond Money and Pride, which is simply not where “crime” comes from in reality.

Really, “crime” comes from the places that police decide to police. As Slate noted, The McCallisters committed ample crimes without any risk of prosecution. The fantasy of their crimes is acceptable compared to the crimes committed by fantasy villains, who are simply caricatures of the lower class, and the lower class is much more acceptably labeled criminal.

(Let’s not discuss the incredibly shallow misunderstanding of poverty when they attempt to address it in Home Alone 2.)

Yes, Home Alone is a very particular kind of rich person fantasy, where you have an opportunity for justified violence without consequence, whether it is the severe brain damage either Bandit could have realistically suffered or the pursuit of the justice system.

The McCallisters are absolutely not criminals; this would not serve the fantasy.

But this movie may serve as a primer for a toxic fantasy that can grow out of control into something eldritch in certain populations, if you look at it sideways. It pumps its fist at a certain kind of paranoid power fantasy.

~

It’s interesting to note that John Hughes didn’t think of the McCallisters as really *rich,* even while writing a rich guy’s fantasy. The mansion setting was chosen by Chris Columbus because it created more space for the elaborate traps, and once you’ve put a family in a mansion, they’ve inherited a history of generational wealth that is preferentially given to white people as a caste in America. It’s simply how America works.

The set design of the mansion and composition of the family are meant to evoke Norman Rockwell, a painter born in 1894 who depicted an America which has changed notably since his peak. Rockwell is truly an embodiment of Americana for some. Nostalgia is often preyed upon in white nationalism and other extreme right-wing stances that benefit wealth inequality.

What I’m saying here is that someone who isn’t a rich white guy would simply have a different kind of fantasy than this one — it’s inseparable from his orientation in our world. Only a man of his perspective could imagine a neutral, nostalgic, pleasant American family that looked exactly like this, in this setting, with this pursuit of American fantasy-justice against a specter of criminality that shows cluelessness to the real structural inequity of the country which benefits him.

Chris Columbus and John Hughes aren’t the enemy; this isn’t a condemnation by any means. Hughes in particular comes from a working class background in an America where a one-income white family could live in suburbia (with all the associated real estate wealth). For his era and position, he came up as Just Some Guy.

His movies often did address class sensitively, and in favor of “the little guy.” Someone can be enfranchised and privileged and a beneficiary of a lot of dreadful things, but also a thoughtful and talented artist with good intentions who did his best with what he had. I think this is true of many great artists coming out of the higher caste in a caste system. We can only have our own perspective, and all of us are damaged and limited by hierarchy in different ways.

Still, we’ve had Home Alone for more than thirty years, and I think it’s interesting to come back to really see it. It’s easy to take an iconic classic for granted and label it a great without wondering who it’s great for.

~

The question I always ask about fantasy wish fulfillment movies is, “Who does the fantasy benefit?”

The fantasy of Home Alone is meant to be a small child getting one over on grownups, and it works so well on that level, it really can be that simple.

But the way that the child gets one over on grownups, the way the grownups are chosen and depicted, is specific to the perspective of wealthy whiteness–and a paranoid perspective.

I don’t feel prepared to evaluate the impact of this very narrow fantasy on culture. I’ll leave you, instead, with a story about a very young Sara who enjoyed this movie when she was younger than Kevin McCallister.

I remember lying on the floor of my family’s apartment with a piece of construction paper, trying to draw the layout of our home. The complex probably had fifty units across five buildings (or something like that). The carpet was twenty years old and smelled like it. We had always rented, and always would. When I drew the apartment, I blew up the scale really big and imagined each room thrice its size to make more room for traps.

There simply wasn’t much to trap: in about nine hundred square feet, the bedrooms were clustered around the end of a short hall, and the kitchen and living room bracketed the opposite end. But also, The Sticky Bandits would never want to attack us, my mom reassured me. We didn’t have anything worth stealing. That’s the kind of thing you should tell a child, not that she is statistically much more vulnerable than the kid in the movie.

I wanted to break Adult Guy feet on toys and bash their heads with bans of green beans and burn their hands with my doorknobs. Blissful, paranoid Christmas fantasy in the middle of a small town apartment complex. I still love watching it. Does that need to mean anything at all?

(image credit: Disney)

IN A WORLD where nobody on Letterboxd appreciates two hot people with good chemistry (an average of 1.9 stars on this one!),

where the Netflix royal families all somehow ended up around Aldovia because of The Silk Road,

an extremely hot Italian-American hairdresser bullies the extremely hot prince of Lavania into loving her midriff as much as I do.

Yet again, a producer pulled off the coup of convincing a production company to pay for a vacation to New Zealand, where two super hot young people have vastly superior chemistry to any other Netflix romcom couple. Honestly, I sometimes think location shoots are like summer camp for frisky young actors, and GOOD FOR THEM. I believe the chemistry so much that I feel I might have been violating their privacy. Good. For. Them. Need a middle aged nutbag to be your unicorn? *phone hand gesture* Call me.

Mena Massoud has been on my “makes me insensate and babbling” shortlist of actors since I saw the live action adaptation of Aladdin for the first time. When I lost two hours to the haze of thirsty fantasies about Mena Massoud for the first time, I was convinced Aladdin was actually a good remake. Then I tried watching the movie again and realized it wasn’t actually good. No, Mena Massoud is just incredibly hot. He’d probably have chemistry with a pillar. Or the concept of Kantian philosophy. Like he just exists and he’s got chemistry with existence.

I’m so happy that someone saw his hotness and thought “let’s make a movie where it’s more like he’s Princess Jasmine falling in love with a commoner.” I just want him doing romcoms with other beautiful people for the rest of his career, if that’s okay with him. I understand if that isn’t his ambition. BUT! If that’s what he wants to do, I’m here for it! I will watch it. I flew out of my chair when the two of them finally made out. I was monster-growling “just fuck already” at them about halfway through the movie.

Our heroine had so much personality, warmth, and charm, and she came along with a hilarious set of friends whose job was to mostly have sizzling lesbian chemistry with the caricature of a mean French lady. I laughed a lot.

The woman the prince is supposed to marry is perfect, and I’m so happy the credits animation showed her fulfilling her dream of opening a store with Purses for Dogs.

11/10 no notes, had a great time with the whole thing.

(image credit: Netflix)

Harry and Sally love the hell out of each other, but it takes a while to kick in. It’s not love at first sight. It’s total bafflement.

Their lives are unrecognizable to one another. Harry is a cynical romantic who hits on his girlfriend’s best friend the day they meet; Sally takes it for granted there are no Sunday underwear because of God. Her earnestness is only matched by her specificity. When Sally sweetly lists out exactly how she wants her food prepared, she somehow isn’t annoying, and you can tell that people have loved to accommodate Sally her whole life. Harry should be immune, but he’s not, and he’s self-aware enough to find Sally’s effect on him queer. His gaze says “How the hell am I so attracted to this naive nutball?”

Harry tries to put this complicated charming woman into a box he knows how to handle — like a one night stand — and she resists. Sally is so offended that he isn’t constrained to the same boundaries she respects.

“Why can’t we just be friends?” asks Sally, to paraphrase.

“Men and women can’t be friends without involving sex,” replies Harry, to state the main question of the movie.

When they move on from that strange road trip, it’s years before they see each other again, but they do not forget.

~

Sally and Harry meet again when both of them are in committed relationships. Harry is married happily, sort of. He’s still a cynic, but he has decided to engage with life in good faith, and Sally admires that about him.

Despite his bluster and bark, Harry is such a good guy that he’s not taking any serious look at Sally yet. They’re a pleasant chance meeting on a flight from one place to another. They’re just traveling between places again, and they brush up against each other, and it couldn’t possibly turn into anything. They determine that means they can be friends. Just friends. At long last.

But they’ve also been wondering that about one another for years. What would have happened if they had hooked up that night? Could it have changed the trajectories of their lives?

~

Friendship love is my favorite love. The Greeks had a bunch of words for all the different kinds, but philia is the kind held between equals; it is brotherhood, it is your pinkie-locked bestie skipping beside you at the mall. Imagine spending a whole lifetime with your childhood best friend. If those endless summer days where the two wasted time, like, crawling around in a ditch, and playing hopscotch, and throwing rocks at fences could really last forever, what would that be like? Wouldn’t it be better if the two of you could also kiss sometimes? And make babies and a family and have a life together?

~

Harry and Sally get close to one another after major breakups. Both of them thought they had forever. The next step should have been houses, kids, dogs, paying for college, grandkids…

Instead, they find themselves facing their thirties mutually single. Harry and Sally aren’t traveling anymore, either. They’re both in New York City.

At this point, they’ve bickered over the offensive idea of a relationship between the two of them so much, it almost feels like a challenge to stay platonic. And they really *like* the friendship. They don’t want to lose it.

It seems impossible to conceive of the friendship coexisting with a romantic relationship. They’ve both been hurt by love. Harry’s wife left him for an accountant; Sally’s long-term guy married his secretary shortly after their breakup. As far as either of them are concerned, relationships are where love goes to die.

Still. They have been enjoying their friendship enormously. Their conversations are play. They’re always walking together, confiding in one another, and sharing experiences.

When Sally tells Harry she’s going to date someone else, she wants him to have a problem with it.

When Harry tells her it’s okay, it’s obviously not.

“We’re just friends,” sayeth Harry. Because that is something men and women can do now.

~

Is there anything more satisfying than seeing a couple of idiots realize they’re in love?

Harry and Sally can’t be with each other until they reconcile all their weird relationship ideas. They have to see their friends, General Leia and Bruno Kirby, have a relationship where they enjoy one another *and* have the love bits. They have to lose the friendship and realize that’s what they wanted from love all along, not so much the sexier bits or the romantic bits.

How many heterosexual romances are so openly uneasy with the perceived cultural demands of heterosexual romance? Sally’s a Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus type, and if Harry were 35 (ish?) in the modern era, I’m scared to think about what his podcast subscriptions would look like. They’ve been told that whole parts of their selves should belong to friends, not lovers. Lovers are the people you try to escape before they wake up in the morning. Lovers are the people you take skiing trips with. Lovers are the ones you fake orgasms for.

These adorable fools are all heart, no matter how many walls they put up. Harry is sickeningly in love with Sally. All of her, especially the quirks. He thinks that it would be great to be friends who make out and have a family. Of course he does! Sally is Meg Goddamn Ryan.

And imagine. Once these two finally get their shit together, they get to spend the rest of their lives with their best friends.

~

He and I met in 2006. I was starting at my new job as a computer operator; he was already working there as a student worker. It was so naughty for a full-time employee like me to date a student worker, even though I’m several months younger than him. When I walked away from him, he chased; when he caught me, I was the one who said, “Ah ha, I’ve got you.”

It must have been inevitable. We were the only two young people working in that building. There was no reason for the two of us to be such a perfect fit. I wasn’t a perfect fit anywhere, sticking out like a sore thumb. He blended in anywhere, but wasn’t a fit inside of himself. I helped him be naughtier. He tied a weight around my ankles so I wouldn’t float into the clouds as often. But we had so much fun. We ran around like children getting into trouble–we were children–and he loved me so hard, I eventually forgot to hate myself.

~

In my eyes, When Harry Met Sally eclipses and predominates the whole of its genre. The story is very dear to me, but When Harry Met Sally is also just a really well-written screenplay in the hands of a great director. Rob Reiner is a genius. Nora Ephron is at her vibey best.

Then we have a flawless Billy Crystal, who gives a performance with pining eyes that rival Colin Firth’s. That’s right. You wouldn’t necessarily expect that from the guy who wrote America’s Sweethearts, a black comedy take on romcoms. He manages to bring so much charisma to a character who should be nothing but caustic. The way he plays Harry’s cynicism softening for Sally should be cinematic legend if it isn’t.

I couldn’t sing Meg Ryan’s praises enough. Apparently her character’s picky qualities came from Nora Ephron. There’s a lot of fondness in the screenplay for the kind of woman who knows what she wants, and I’m not sure Meg Ryan is capable of playing someone I wouldn’t want to hang out with. She’s just so cute. And it’s fun seeing her in this movie, because she looks a whole lot like her son Jack Quaid wearing a wig. They have the same smile.

You should also remember that Rob Reiner is the cowriter and director of This Is Spinal Tap. The comedy is *outstanding*. The dialogue snaps along, and it still makes me laugh every time.

Since I’ve been watching so many new-to-me movies and enjoying the heck out of them, I wondered if I wouldn’t like my “old classics” as much. Like, would having a broader view of the genre change my extremely intense feelings about this? And the answer is no. When Harry Met Sally remains the perfect movie for watching any time in the period between autumn and New Year’s Eve, and it makes me love these two neurotic weirdos even more every time.

Hallmark-style Christmas romances are probably best framed in that way, rather than actually summarizing the plot. This is one of those genres where predictability is considered a feature rather than a bug. I tell you it’s a Hallmark-style small town Christmas romance where an heiress visits her dad’s hometown and falls for an artist/innkeeper, you can imagine every beat.

All of the expected occurs. The movie stands on its marks when it’s supposed to, and there are no major disappointments. Indeed, this is the rare small town romance that acknowledges unhoused people. Usually small town romances seem to happen in a fantasy land with no relation to reality. This one peeked into reality long enough to say, “Maybe we treat everyone like humans who exist in our idyllic small town?” and I appreciated it.

Otherwise there is really nothing to be said about this. It’s a Hallmark-style movie about a Hallmark-style heiress and they live Happily Ever After. It helped me realize I definitely prefer Christmas romance movies that have an emphasis on the com, though. My personal taste is for louder comedy. Or any comedy. This was a pretty sedate romance.

I really liked this hero, though. Dudeface is a normal looking- and acting-dude on the outside, but he’s a deranged little Christmas weirdo and the actor doesn’t seem to realize it in the portrayal. It’s objectively hilarious to get sad about your ex and listen to “Silent Night” loudly in the office. He sits around sadly drawing Christmas stuff, like reindeer. He’s kind of a little defensive shit when he learns the heroine kept a secret, but it feels appropriate to this man’s emotional coping level. When someone is angrily drawing kitschy Santa Clauses… I don’t know man. That’s weird. I love weird. The Hallmarky dedication to a Christmas theme has entered such surrealist territory that I had to get on board.

His main appeal to the heroine is that he’s really caring toward his community, and I love a nurturing hero. Plus, our heroine gave a really good performance that seemed naive but sincere, rather than spoiled, so they were a cute match.

It’s important to note that Andie MacDowell accidentally brings smoldering lesbian bakery energy to the kitchen with Clarke from The 100. Of late, Andie MacDowell has taken up the career of a working actor, and she appears in all sorts of commercial projects to do a professional, sexy job, looking hotter than I’ve ever seen her, and it’s actually possible there’s no chemistry between them but I’m just feeling gay for Andie MacDowell.

As I always say, a movie is queer cinema if it gives me queer feelings, but again: our heroine is Clarke from The 100 (pronounced “The Hundred”), who is a bisexual icon. Just because Clarke (both the heroine and actress have a name too) is only in a wispy brief love triangle with two men in this movie doesn’t erase the fact I know Clarke wanted to scissor Andie MacDowell the whole time. Bakery milf/heiress energy? Anyone on board with me? No? Just me, as usual? Okay, cool.

Anyway, I’ve been watching so much Christmas romance lately that I feel comfortable saying this is a mid movie in the genre, no matter how often it lets me see Clarke’s muscular thighs and Clarke’s generous rack and think about Clarke ~baking ~cookies with Milfy MacDowell.

If you wanna see a woman transform her environment with kindness, pop over to Last Holiday. If you want small town, watch Single All the Way because it’s gay and it has Jennifer Coolidge. If you want bisexual heroine energy, try Christmas With You. If you wanna see Andie McDowell, google.

(image credit: Netflix)

I like to spend the whole period between Halloween and Christmas watching Christmas movies. It’s not about great cinema; it’s about vibes.

If you’re into vibe maintenance, you know what I’m talking about. You need the soundscape, the background colors, the ~mood~ that you can only get from a couple of people with really nice teeth falling in love adjacent to Christmas lights.

Keeping a movie going on the TV is cozier than putting up a fake fireplace (slightly) but you can’t necessarily give a movie more attention than a fake fireplace. It’s time to wrap presents. Your cat is on the wrapping paper. The kids want to open another bottle of sparkling cider. You’re wondering if you can fit in the closet with the presents, without cats or kids.

Right now you’re not keeping up with elaborate plots. Rewatching movies every year means you don’t have to. You always know when the good parts of When Harry Met Sally come around. If you miss it this year, you’ll see it next year.

So when I put something new on my rewatch list, it has to be special. It has to endure revisiting every 12 months, but only being revisited with as much attention as Swiss has cheese. It has to be predictable enough that I don’t get too caught up in worrying over the characters’ drama. I appreciate good needle drops. I want over-decorated Christmas sets whenever possible.

I found a few movies worth adding to the yearly rewatch list, so here’s my suggestions for a few you may or may not have in rotation.

5. Single All the Way

If you like the traditional Hallmark-style romance, you might appreciate this version that features a male couple. The simple fantasy of an accepting family in a cute town with affordable real estate prices should belong to all sexual orientations.

From Christmas photo shoots, to excessive sweater-wearing, and Jennifer Coolidge over-directing a very dramatic Christmas play, Single All the Way has all the pretty things you could possibly want to ignore on your television.

4. Four Christmases

I think people skipped this once because it was advertised as a Vince Vaughn movie, and I bet you know what I mean when I say that. Bringing up Four Christmases in conversation made people say, “Isn’t that the one where the kid beats up Vince Vaughn?” and the fact I have to say “yeah, sorry, that’s the one” isn’t starting this recommendation off on the best foot.

But that’s a pretty brief part of the movie, which is in service of drawing a picture about messy families – like the Vince Vaughn version of the cousins in My Big Fat Greek Wedding getting into trouble. It’s part of the process wherein Reese Witherspoon realizes she wants to have a family with Vince Vaughn. Their relationship is adorably nontraditional for holiday romances. I think long-time committed couples will especially appreciate how these two keep it fresh.

It’s not the most vibey suggestion, but the central couple is so cute I have to recommend it. And I bet it’s not one of your favorites yet.

3. What Happens Later

This is the first year that What Happens Later has been eligible for watching, much less existing or rewatching, but I immediately gave it a position of honor on my mental shelf of Holiday Rewatches. Meg Ryan might be my favorite 90s/00s romcom darling, and my wifemommy is just as good as ever.

Contemplative and moody, What Happens Later is a slow-paced conversation between two very charming actors enjoying one another’s company immensely. Although it gets sad here and there, it’s mostly a magical look at love later in life between sweet goofball Meg Ryan and a caustic bag of luggage played by David Duchovny.

I read the stage play this was based upon before seeing the movie, and Meg Ryan did a wonderful job tweaking it just a bit to make the story warmer, but no less theatrical. This one will flow nicely in tone between more well-worn classics.

2. Falling for Christmas

Hear me out. Even if you like the Hallmarky Christmas movie subgenre, you might not love the idea of watching Lindsay Lohan; I know there were times in her life where she wasn’t delivering her best performances. But this woman is perfect in this movie. She is every corny pink-drenched atom of clueless heiress turned flannel stepmommy that you could ever possibly want.

I’ve also watched enough holiday romances by now to realize that chemistry between the leads is entirely optional. These two are actually into each other somewhat. And despite dealing with the usual budgetary issues that Netflix holiday romances tangle with, they manage to get some good song moments, too. At some point you realize the movie has gone from silly-garish to an actual aesthetic, and it feels like you were transported onto a hot cocoa mix box logo when you weren’t paying attention. I love this one.

1. Last Holiday

Queen Latifah stars in an inspirational romance about celebrating life through grief. Sounds corny put that way? I’ve never met a movie that made me feel such a genuine outpouring of emotion. Queen Latifah absolutely destroys my soul with a beautiful performance, and the story is such heartfelt Christmas magic. Last Holiday is a great balance between my stylized platonic ideal of a Christmas movie and a flick that actually has stuff to say on a spiritual level. I *went places* watching this.

The subplot I always think about is Queen Latifah with the woman who’s having an affair. Our heroine isn’t nice confronting this woman when the opportunity arises, but she’s extremely *kind*, and the blunt honesty transforms her life. I can’t describe how the bumps along that bit spoke to me, and that was just one of many very lovely moments packed into this.

I’m convinced Last Holiday is the king of all Christmas romcoms. Somehow it totally flew under my radar until this year, and now I don’t want to live without it. I have to put it at the top of this list in case Last Holiday hasn’t graced your life yet. But maybe you already love this one too! I was surprised when I started talking about it and had folks coming out of the woodwork with superlatives.

What kind of movies are your perpetual holiday rewatches?

I have to give five stars to a movie that makes me goofy-smile while watching it, hands clapped to my cheeks, happily rocking in my chair. This did it for me, and it’s not exclusively because I’ve been in love with Aimee Garcia since she was on Lucifer.

This is a pretty standard Christmas romcom, so the tropes can really tell you what you need to know: heroine falls for the hero’s family, celebrity falls in love with small town guy, pop star collaborating with songwriter.

I always like to say how it’s about execution rather than idea, and the execution here just works for me on all the levels. This is a very standard Christmas romance done simply and competently, in the best possible way.

The director (who is a woman!) Gabriela Tagliavini did a beautiful, emotional, heartfelt job making this movie. The casting is all on-point. Lots of great performances. Lovely music. Warm, pretty cinematography. Open adoration for Latino culture. The story checks every single box I want checked in a Christmas romcom superlatively.

Heck: even the Gen Zers are given fantasy fulfillment in this one. A 14-going-on-15 year old girl precipitates the meet cute between our H&h when the pop star notices Kiddo’s TikTok cover of her song. I love it.

Heroine Aimee Garcia’s performance admittedly carries the movie. She’s so open and charismatic and you can see her character’s thoughts all over her face. This girl is *working*. The fact I feel Freddie Prinze Jr doesn’t meet her level is, I think, because he’s actually just playing the meek smalltown single Daddy so well. He sorta provided a more “real” performance in She’s All That relative to the stylized approach of the movie too; the more grounded approach here just kinda got a little outshined by all the pink sparklies and the pop star (as you would expect). They don’t have especially hot chemistry, but they are very warm and friendly, and I find that to be wholly appropriate for the holiday genre.

I don’t really have anything to analyze here; this is exactly the kind of thing that lets me turn off and just relax and enjoy myself all the way.

~

Fun fact: Aimee Garcia is a vampire. Freddie Prinze Jr is 47, and he looks about 47. I assumed this was a weird unremarked-upon age gap romance because Aimee Garcia surely had to be twenty years his junior. Nope! The woman is 45 years old. Since goddamn when? Twenty years from now? Can you believe I got through 400 words of review without talking about her ass in those leather pants? Wait, shit. Goddammit.

(image credit: Netflix)

I keep forgetting I watched these movies to review them. The fact I’m offering three stars for them to share is a Christmas miracle of true generosity (although all three stars were earned by the third movie). My charitability is a shining North Star.

I gave the first of the franchise five stars because I really couldn’t think of a reason not to. It artfully dodged evoking emotions, producing the perfectly bland inoffensive Christmas vibe such movies are meant to evoke. Romance has a lot of very problematic tropes that are, in my opinion, most effectively used when you do not try to justify them or ground them in reality.

I’m so comfortable with the princess fantasy; marrying into socioeconomic security and fancy dresses IS, in fact, an awesome fantasy.

The problem is when you try to actually talk about the monarchy and get into monarchist fantasies. I mean, who does it really serve to have a fantasy of the “good king”? Is there any utility to the lower classes to fantasize about monarchy without violence? Sounds like a nice way to validate a shitty system.

Royal Wedding was more of a mystery (I assume driven by the desire to use Rose McIver’s experience and audience from iZombie) and unfortunately not an especially good or memorable one. The second movie barely has King Richard present, which means it’s not really very romantic, and he’s mostly getting up to stuff that shows us how he’s one of the good members of the ruling class. The monarchy was making life heck for Aldovian citizens, and King Richard felt Just So Dreadful about it (frowny face), but luckily it turned out it was a scheming McBadguy and the monarchy is still cool. Phew!

I thought I had zero patience for “one of the good ruling class” anymore, but I was more patient by the time the third movie came around. Mostly because there was lots of King Richard being romantic! I love baby tropes. Being concerned for his wife (who births a four-month-old baby, which I ALSO LOVE), getting another king’s help building the crib, sitting around trying to figure out The Baby Stuff, interfacing with the doctor.

Turns out I’m okay just kinda shoving all the gross monarchist stuff behind the curtain if they will be so kind as to push my buttons about cozy family and the ongoing romance of marriage. It’s all I want, and it feels like it’s not that hard.

Basically if I’m getting All Sara About The Politics, the romance isn’t good enough to distract me. The third movie pulled it off way better. It also gave us a really good amount of Alice Krige. For future Christmases, I might honestly revisit the Aldovia trilogy (70% to thirst over Alice Krige), but just kinda skip over the middle one.

I would love if they put a pin in this series for now and brought us back to Aldovia in about 10 years to keep going.

(image credit: Netflix)