The holiday season is characterized by friends, family, and lots of television. Picking between the hundreds of holiday movies available to watch is a daunting task—especially when many of them have similar posters and plotlines. Here’s what to watch and what to avoid.
Love Actually: 8/10
The relatively popular holiday movie Love Actually is a must-watch. The movie’s philosophical ramblings about love—note the incredibly quotable “If you look for it, I’ve got a sneaky feeling that love, actually, is all around”—and generally greater thematic complexity than other Christmas movies make it stand out. Over the course of a six-week countdown to Christmas, ten vastly different relationships play out. Rather than having a real plot, the movie follows each story in order to explore the nuanced complexity of love, and I found myself begrudgingly touched. Though eventually circling back to the very overdone message of “love is beautiful,” the story’s diverse subplots make it easy to stay engaged. That being said, it could be tough to keep track of the ten different storylines if the movie is on in the background.
Holiday in Santa Fe: 3/10
Beyond its rhyming title, this movie doesn’t have much going for it. It’s a classic Hallmark-like film, thrown together for the holidays with neither much substance nor acting prowess to boot. It follows the very cliché storyline of a big-city holiday décor executive who flies to Santa Fe to acquire a family business. There, she meets the business’s owner, Tony, and sparks fly. Not only does this movie lack the winter wonderland setting of the average trashy holiday romcom—it’s set in New Mexico, after all—but it is laughably predictable. I wish I could say that it’s so bad it’s good, but I found myself zoning out for most of the movie.
Trolls: Holiday In Harmony: 7/10
The wildly successful Trolls franchise is back, this time with a holiday twist. This new movie follows beloved protagonists Branch and Poppy as they set up a Troll Village gift exchange—only to end up drawing each other. As they struggle to come up with perfect gifts, the movie circles back to the franchise’s broader, somewhat cliché themes of the importance of friendship and individuality. Complete with its trademark musical numbers and a star-studded cast, including Kylie Jenner, Justin Timberlake, and Anna Kendrick, Holiday in Harmony is a vivid burst of holiday cheer. It’s a perfect movie to watch with younger family members this season or even a comforting watch on your own.
A Unicorn For Christmas: 5/10
This intriguingly titled movie follows young heroine, Izzy, played by Abby Witherspoon, Reese Witherspoon’s niece, who finds a unicorn at her local fair. Only those who “believe” are able to see the unicorn for what it truly is, highlighting the movie’s emphasis on childlike innocence and the value of imagination. When the fair owner seeks to exploit the unicorn for profit, Izzy strives to rescue it. Though undoubtedly juvenile, this movie gets points for creativity. The acting and costuming are comically bad, but this is what Holiday in Santa Fe isn’t: it’s so bad it’s good. It would be a blast to poke fun at with friends.
Christmas Crush: 1/10
When your Christmas wish is for your neighbor to fall in love with you, it’s probably time to rethink your life choices. Somehow, though, this pathetic wish is turned into a holiday rom-com, and that rom-com is Christmas Crush. Set in New York City and interweaved with annoyingly upbeat Christmas songs, this movie is the epitome of a bad holiday movie. The cinematography is almost reminiscent of an advertisement, the movie’s title font is horrifically dated, and the main character is cardboard, too-happy, and overly crafty. When she mistakenly wishes for the wrong neighbor, an old friend from school, to fall in love with her, he becomes scarily obsessed with her, making for an extremely frustrating-to-watch love triangle.
