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)
