Premise: Two attractive 20-somethings agree to be each other's dates for holiday events in order to escape the pressures of being alone on those days.
Here's the important thing to remember. Holidate is a Hallmark Christmas movie with swearing. As long as you keep that in mind, it's a pretty fun movie. Emma Roberts stays in her sweet spot: less wholesome than her early family movies but not as toxic as Chanel in Scream Queens. Basically, she's a nice person who's a little cynical. Her and Luke Bracey are the right level of attractive for each other. The premise of the movie is simple and obvious. Even as the movie tries to be self-aware with a speech about how RomComs are so predictable, the movie ends up being completely predictable. I enjoyed many of the exaggerated supporting performances. Kristin Chenoweth clearly had the most fun, and good for her. I also enjoyed uptight Cynthy Wu, Manish Dayal as the token romantic rival, and Alex Moffat stepping in for a couple scenes like he was workshopping an SNL dad character. And really, I liked the swearing. There was a certain glee to it in this movie: like they were getting away with making cum jokes in a Holiday RomCom. It even has some children swearing, which makes anything at least a B+ in my book.
The movie is obviously contrived. Despite its genre self-awareness it isn't particularly clever, which is a bummer. It's sort of like if a poet comes up to you and says "I know all the rules or poetry. I'm very educated in all the structures and patterns of poetry, and I find them tiresome." then the poet goes and writes a 10-line poem of rhyming couplets, you'd be a little disappointed. Then again, would I really want the RomCom where they don't fall in love?
Honestly, my actual issue with the movie is that Luke Bracey just isn't that interesting for this. He's a handsome romantic lead, but he can't do much with the comedy. Emma Roberts ends up running in circles around him whenever it gets to a Com part of the RomCom. Given his filmography, I don't think this is a fluke. I imagine the version of this with, frankly, any of the guys from Everybody Wants Some!! (Blake Jenner, Glen Powell, Wyatt Russell, Tyler Hoechlin) and it's immediately more appealing.
Verdict: Weakly Recommend
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