Director: Steve Carr
Writer: Holly Hester
Stars: Alicia Silverstone, Oliver Hudson, Jameela Jamil
Synopsis: A separated couple tries celebrating one last Christmas together with their kids before their divorce. However, the husband’s new girlfriend joins the festivities, causing tension and chaos during the holidays.
The Christmas centered rom-com is a staple for a reason. It heightens this time of love, good will, and family. It exposes the cracks in something thought unbreakable and its traditions a reminder of the good times. For new romance, Christmas is the tension point, but for a second chance romance it’s a point at which the lovers find their footing as to who they once were to each other.
It could seem like a type of spoiler to announce that A Merry Little Ex-Mas is a second chance romance, but it’s obvious as soon as you get the rhythm of the film. It would be hard to spoil a romance as the destination is a foregone conclusion. It’s a staple of the genre for there to be a happy ending. It’s a genre that embodies the, “it’s the journey, not the destination,” ethos.
The journey that is A Merry Little Ex-Mas is a pretty delightful one. That’s mainly thanks to Alicia Silverstone as Kate. She’s an actress who can give something more substantial to the silliness around her with just a look. She’s never lost that bright and hopeful optimism of her best roles, but her characters now, and especially Kate, keep the optimism with a healthy dose of reality mixed in. Silverstone has a good sense of timing with an emotive face that makes her a heroine to cheer for.
We want to cheer for Kate, even if her trajectory rings a bit false at the end. Writer Holly Hester does an excellent job within the tropes of the genre. She’s come up with ridiculous and funny scenarios as well as a host of great characters. Most of the ridiculous scenarios involve either terrific himbo Chet (Pierson Fodé) or adorkable Harry Potter tour guide and along for the ride boyfriend Nigel (Timothy Innes).
The producers made the right call in hiring journeyman comedy director Steve Carr as well. He’s got the depth of knowledge to pull off some excellent bits because he understands how he can enhance a well written scene. There’s a scene toward the end that is a perfect piece of chaos. As the Christmas tree comes aflame, man of many hats, Chet leaps into action. The much more competent Gabriel (Wilder Hudson), goes to actually help, while Chet tears off his clothes because he tells us later, they are flame retardant, which is necessary for his exotic dancing act. Carr and cinematographer Adam Santelli show us wide angles of the sexy floor show and the reactions of the audience, including the lecherous April (Melissa Joan Hart), sipping her martini. It’s a weird and funny scene that was enhanced by Carr’s direction. Though, like most of the film, it feels like far too easy of a solution.
Too easy is sometimes the trouble with a genre that deals with falling in love. It may be that this film’s story feels this way because the characters were in love before. They have the basis and they have no true animosity until it comes out in the course of the story. So, to see the obvious end coming as it barrels on toward us feels like a bit too much compromise was made for the sake of the genre. There are concessions in the finale toward where the story could have gone, but the need for the correct type of happy ending failed the storytelling of the film.
A Merry Little Ex-Mas isn’t supposed to redefine the rom-com genre. It isn’t supposed to upend the tropes or give us a twist to really ponder. What it is meant to do is give us another story that can make us feel a little less alone and a little like we might want to escape to a very small town where everyone knows your business because they care. It’s meant to make us laugh, cry, and feel warm inside. A Merry Little Ex-Mas does all of that. It’s a film that feels like fuzzy slippers and a mug of hot cocoa and that’s not a bad thing at all.
