November 1, 2020
During their family Christmas reunion, her mother and siblings all could not help but harp on Sloane (Emma Roberts) and her absence of a boyfriend, and this annoyed her no end. While in line to return Christmas gifts, Sloane met golf pro Jackson (Luke Bracey) who was similarly single and hounded by his friends for it. After sharing common experiences with each other, they decided to become each other's "holidate" -- a platonic companion only during holiday parties to avoid intrusive comments from family and friends.
This was generally a feel-good holiday rom-com which banked heavily on the appealing charm and chemistry of its two lead stars to stand out from the similarly plotted films. It was amusing and surprising to realize that there were so many holiday parties which one can attend in a year's time, from one Christmas to the next -- Valentine's Day, St. Patrick's Day, Easter, Cinco de Mayo, Mother's Day, Fourth of July, Labor Day (also York and Liz's wedding day), Halloween and Thanksgiving.
Emma Roberts is as delightful as she always was in many of her films, since her first lead role in "Nancy Drew" (2007). She was able to make Sloane's cynicism look so cute and was the x-factor why a film like this could even manage to transcend its cliches. Luke Bracey had that air of a typical Australian charming cad around him, which made him a perfect fit for the role of Jackson. There was very easy romantic chemistry between Roberts and Bracey so there was no doubting how their story was going to go.
Kristen Chenowith played Sloane's single Aunt Susan, whose indiscriminate choice of dates gave this film some of its cringiest moments. . Boyish-looking 37 year-old actor Manish Dayal played the role of Dr. Faarooq, the man Sloane's mother Elaine (Frances Fisher, most memorable as Rose's mother in "Titanic") wanted for her. There were minor subplots involving Sloane's siblings Abby (Jessica Capshaw) ignored by her husband Peter (Alex Moffatt), and York (Jake Manley), about to marry his straightlaced girlfriend Liz (Cynthy Wu).
This romcom definitely follows the same old tried and true formula for this genre to the letter. Attractive single girl meets attractive single boy. They have a good time together as friends. They both recognize that there was something more. They have a serious disagreement and split up. They get back together again as would be expected in films like this. We all saw the happy ending from the moment they met each other the first time in that department store, it was just that they were too self-absorbed to see the obvious. 5/10
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