JaynaB

I was pleasantly surprised by a movie I did not have high hopes for. Honestly, after Lindsay's first outing with Netflix in the utterly abysmal "Falling for Christmas," I can't say I had any hopes for this movie at all.

But the script is better, the casting is better, the implausible series of dysfunctional family secrets is better, and Lindsay is miles better for this role and this character's range. It reminds you that she used to be able to act quite credibly. And it helps that she's cast in a part where they don't have to pretend she is younger and hasn't had any facial work done. Actually, next to Kristin C (still beautiful but largely paralytic as to expression-emoting), her face has way more mobility.

The plot starts off in one of those classic Christmas romcom traditions where the two exes, Avery and Logan, come face-to-face at a Christmas party thrown by the parents of their two current partners, who are siblings. Of course things quickly goes off the rails when Avery makes a split-second decision to pretend she's never met Logan before this moment. The former couple make a pact that he will help her get along with the woman who she hopes will be her future mother-in-law, and she will help him put in a winning proposal on a retirees lifestyle complex to finally impress his boss and land a lucrative contract to impress his future in-laws.

There are many solid supporting roles here, competently handled, and a plot that keeps unfolding perfectly plausible surprises given the set up. For all the faked-to-perfection family superficialities and simmering bitchiness, there's also a core of niceness at the heart of this movie, at least at the heart of our everyman hero, Logan (it doesn't hurt that he's better looking than Avery's boyfriend). The ending is the one he and she both deserve, even though everybody else's is a little shaky.

I'm giving it a 6.5, with an extra half for a pleasantly entertaining couple of hours to NOT be embarrassed for Lindsay.

For a Reel One film I was pleasantly surprised. Many of their Christmas romcoms are subpar in setting, acting, plot and especially writing. This starts off like a b-movie with unlikeable main character and unskilled lead actor (actually I was rooting for the assistant) but I soon realized it was a meta sendup through and through.

The jump-cuts from day to night and location to location might seem like careless filming but it's soon obvious they are absolutely deliberate. The main character is completely at sea when it happens, cuing us that something odd is going on in movie-land. When she once again sees the airport Santa that wished this 'curse' on her, the penny drops.

I have to say that the main character gets more likeable as the movie continues and she is forced to grapple with figuring out the parameters of this magical Christmas movie-world she's trapped in.

This movie is a 6 on its own, .5 more for the concept and another .5 for its execution, and the extra .5 (7.5 total) is for the very entertaining secondary characters who are completely oblivious that they are stock characters in a Christmas rom-com.