#16: Are You Still Watching? Netflix's Christmas Cheese 🎄
Get the definitive ranking and naughty/nice verdict of Netflix's original Christmas movies from In The Mood Mag's intern Cleo Sood
The Naughty and the Nice of Netflix’s Christmas Cheese
by Cleo Sood
Netflix stole the formula for Christmas cheese straight off cable TV: it looks something like a career-minded single woman returning to her humble hometown for the holidays, where she finds a soulmate in a Christmas tree lumberjack. It is to the Hallmark Channel what white tissue is to Kleenex. It features fewer villains than a standard children’s cartoon, is more apolitical than puppies, and is entirely sexless, as if to say, “All of the adults in our Christmas-oriented universe follow a Christian vow of celibacy.”
Like most contemporary Christmas traditions, these pictures are a capitalist phenomenon—cost-efficient productions with advertiser-appeal, drawing sums of viewers. In 2019, a Netflix spokesperson reported that almost half of Netflix subscribers watched at least one of their original holiday films. It’s clear from casting alone that Netflix utilizes a larger budget to compete with the OGs at Hallmark. Stars of the Hallmark Channel are former child actors of ‘90s sitcom fame. (I’m looking at you, Candace Cameron Bure! a.k.a. DJ from Full House.) Netflix, on the other hand, boasts Lindsay Lohan’s cinematic comeback—which is all I could ever want for Christmas.
I grew up one of those smart-ass kids who learned the truth about Santa earlier than her peers and threatened the destruction of their innocence. I’ve never been one for cheesy Christmas spirit, but I’ve been down and depressed, and every time I log onto Netflix, I see previews for cheerful Christmas spectacles—brightly lit scenes juxtaposing the gloom that surrounds me, promising joy and magic, and the easiest of escapes.
Fast forward a few weeks later, and I’ve watched five films from Netflix’s expansive Christmas catalogue. Once you decide to watch one, you’re compelled to see if the others are any better; after three, a Christmas movie at bedtime becomes an instrumental part of your nightly routine, and by the sixth, you fall into a deep slumber before the opening credits conclude, which is why you stop and count yourself as having viewed five Netflix original Christmas films. Here’s my definitive ranking:
6. Christmas Wedding Planner (2018)
No idea what this is about. Interesting, nonsensical title—does she only plan Christmas weddings? I was excited to see Lily van der Woodsen outside of the Upper East Side, but this movie opens with a pop cover of “Jingle Bells” and a voiceover that put me straight to sleep after a long week. It’s “leaving Netflix soon,” anyway.
🎄 Verdict: Naughty girls need their rest, xoxo Gossip Girl
5. The Princess Switch (2018)
The Princess Switch stars Vanessa Hudgens as an American baker and the Duchess of Montenaro. After randomly bumping into each other at a baking competition, these identical strangers switch places, deceiving loved ones and sovereigns, and absolutely nobody cares. Their drama received zero reactions, which was unrealistic because people’s holiday drama always receives reactions.
Baker Hudgens hits it off with the Duchess’ fiancé, Prince Plain (not the character’s name); she gets that bread by marrying Prince Plain, making her Princess of Belgravia. (There’s no threat of betrayal because the Duchess never liked him, even though he is the most inoffensive man you could imagine.) Duchess Hudgens dates a Chicago commoner/single father, arguably the more attractive, assertive love interest off paper. There are two leading Hudgens, two love stories, and two fake, vaguely European kingdoms. Sadly, this movie is not double the fun. Fun requires risk, mischief, a little chaos—qualities this movie is too scared to indulge past the initial switcheroo. It’s hard to believe these prissy bores would ever do something so silly in the first place.
🎄 Verdict: Doubly naughty; two thumbs down.
4. The Princess Switch: Switched Again (2020)
About halfway through shooting, the people making this movie realized how boring it was. They said, “Quick, what do we do?” The obvious answer was to write in a third Vanessa Hudgens doppelgänger. Enter Cousin Hudgens and her two goofy sidekicks.
Resume filming.
It’s the second act; the Duchess will soon be crowned queen of Belgravia when suddenly, Cousin Hudgens crashes the ball. If you’re thinking back on the first film, wondering, “Why didn’t the Duchess just switch places with her identical cousin instead of a stranger?” the writers want you to know that the Duchess doesn’t play well with her irresponsible Instagram-influencing cousin. Cousin Hudgens speaks to the true meaning of Christmas in that she and her sidekicks are this film’s saviour. She also speaks in a comical, posh British (/Belgravian) accent to differentiate her character from the Duchess, who has a more subdued British (/Belgravian) accent.
🎄 Verdict: Born in a manger and flewd out to Belgravia; the nicest of them all.
3. Christmas Inheritance (2017)
Christmas Inheritance is most like a standard Hallmark film: the story emphasizes morals, namely a message about giving to those less fortunate, which is probably why lead roles in these more sentimental films are given to working actors instead of former A-listers and why production shoots in North Bay, Ontario, opting out of bougie locales.
Christmas Inheritance is also how I imagine a happy, Christmas-y version of Succession would play out if Shiv Roy were a simple rom-com heroine instead of a Lady Macbeth. This movie sees our multiverse Shiv Roy—“party heiress” to a wildly successful, Hallmark-esque gift business—venture to her family's humble homeland, Snow Falls, a town in 21st-century America lacking cell reception. She presents herself as a regular gal with only $100 to her pseudonym, eager to learn the value of a dollar and prove her competency to her CEO father. She divulges her secret identity to the one Hollywood celebrity on set—Andie MacDowell, as the town’s diner owner teaches rom-com Shiv Roy to bake. Rom-com Shiv Roy falls for a nice, townie boy—Tom Wambsgans, without the cursed ambition.
Verdict: If the most insane people you knew were nice, and loved Christmas.
2. A Castle for Christmas (2021)
This movie stars Brooke Shields as a novelist/recent divorcée whose fanbase is Kathy Bates in Misery-levels of furious when they discover she’s killed off the male lead in the latest installment of her successful series. The backlash causes Brooke Shields to have an outburst on the Drew Barrymore show. Following this televised PR faux pass, Brooke Shields escapes to her father’s ancestral village in Scotland. It appears that Brooke Shields is the most famous writer alive, more famous than Stephen King in real life; everyone in this Scottish village has read her books, and they’re too chill to care about any character’s demise. These people just want to knit and read and celebrate Christmas with their favourite celebrity, writer Brooke Shields.
She stays in a castle where her grandfather worked and engages in a romance with the castle’s current groundskeeper, a grumpy yet charming Scotsman, played by Cary Elwes! Yes! Brooke Shields and Cary Elwes are on-screen love interests in an enemies-to-lovers plotline. The Princess Bride meets Blue Lagoon meets Christmas in a castle—or, I should say, A Castle for Christmas. It’s a fairy tale come to life. Along with her stellar eyebrows, Brooke Shields has maintained a girlish quality throughout her life, where you truly believe that this sort of trite fantasy could happen to her. It’s lovely.
🎄 Verdict: So nice that Santa’s saying, “As you wish.”
1. Falling for Christmas (2022)
The movie marking Lindsay Lohan’s return to major movies after more than a decade away reminds us why the world was head over heels for Lohan and makes us fall for her all over again. It’s a Lohan lovefest, and not by accident, either.
The story stars Lohan as a hotel heiress who takes a mighty amnesia-causing fall off a mountain. What awful luck. Just minutes ago, she was singing “Jingle Bell Rock” à la Mean Girls, trekking atop the hill in her Y2K hot pink ski ensemble, and agreeing to her influencer boyfriend’s marriage proposal. Now she can't remember her name. A hunky single father/owner of a modest ski lodge takes Lohan into his care. Per the doctor’s orders, she attempts everyday chores to regain her memory, but unbeknownst to everyone, she’s never done chores before, and therefore the attempt is fruitless. While staying with her hunky caretaker, his daughter, and the staff at this dingy yet seemingly glam lodge, Lohan grows into a better person. It’s a lot like the plot of Christmas Inheritance, but I enjoy that Lohan’s becoming is accidental. She’s not rom-com Shiv Roy; she’s the new Lindsay Lohan. Forget what you read in the tabloids. That was pre-amnesia. Don’t fret, Lohan regains her memory.
🎄 Verdict: The noughties have never been so nice.
Cleo Sood hates writing but she loves having written something.
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