Falling for Christmas
The tropes hit the slopes!
Okay, I know I said I’d schedule some sort of bi-coastal viewing party for this, but then it was a rainy Sunday and I had a gross head cold (not Covid!) and Netflix was all heeeeeyyyy we’ve got your Lindsay Lohan Christmas rom-com RIGHT HERE and you could be watching it RIGHT MEOW…
And I am weak. So weak. A spankin’ new 2022 Netflix mid-budget Christmas rom-com? With Lindsay Lohan? That was panned by The New York Times? And is set in a ski resort?! I’d need to be in a 12-step program to resist that. (Which gives me a terrible idea for a new Christmas rom-com…)
So there’s Lindsay Lohan playing a cross between herself and Ivanka Trump, flouncing around a schmancy-ass ski resort being literally hand-fed champagne and caviar as she gets dressed in the morning. Her big problem? Her fancy hotelier dad, Beauregard Belmont (yes, really), wants her to “work” for him in the made-up role of “VP of Atmosphere,” which honestly sounds more like an actual job than half of the marketing roles you find on LinkedIn.
But Lindsay Lohan’s Sierra (cause it’s set at a ski resort get it?!) isn’t all about that life. She wants to make it on her own as…an internet influencer. Fortunately, Professional Influencer Boyfriend Tad (cause I guess “Chad” has been done to death?) is on his way up the mountain in the back of a stretch Hummer to help!
Cut to Jake, single dad of The Same Eight-Year-Old Girl In Every Other Christmas Movie and plucky owner of the failing (but quaint-as-fuck) North Star Lodge. Jake looks like That Guy You With You Hadn’t Dated in College, down to the frosted tips, but he’s wearing ski pants so I guess we’re supposed to believe he’s Rugged and Outdoorsy and Irresistibly Masculine and all that.
The first twenty minutes of this movie are basically just Ski Resort Porn—hotties in Santa hats in hot tubs, dudes shredding powder on snowboards, Lindsay Lohan floofing about in some sort of hot-pink cross between a ski outfit and a bunny suit—and I am here for it. I’ll seriously watch any movie set in at a ski resort: On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, Avalanche Sharks, Hot Tub Time Machine, the Epic Pass promotional video…I don’t even care, if there’s a gondola in any shot I will watch it.
But then some plot happens, there’s a lengthy and dazzlingly choreographed pratfall, and next thing you know The Guy You Wish You Hadn’t Dated in College is scooping an unconscious Lindsay Lohan into the horse-drawn sleigh that he just happens to be out riding on.
He ought to be done with good deeds at that point, but there is no such thing as being done with good deeds when you’re the male lead of a Christmas rom-com: Sierra has amnesia, and nowhere to go! And since his ski resort is failing there’s plenty of room back at the inn, so he takes her back there and sets her up in a vacant room that happens to have its very own Christmas tree with presents under it and everything.
Over the course of a few scenes we learn that the North Star Lodge is failing so hard that Jake (The Guy You Wish You Hadn’t Dated in College) and his aging mother-in-law have to do every single job all by themselves. They, and they alone, are responsible for every single task that falls under the umbrellas of Reception, Housekeeping, Ski Instruction, Grounds Maintenance, Booking, Guest Relations, Laundry, Recreational Sleigh Rides, Heavy Machinery Repair, Marketing, and presumably things like Bookkeeping and Tax Prep. Fortunately, none of this ever takes more than three minutes so they still have plenty of time leftover for Important Christmas Movie Tasks such as Baking Christmas Cookies, Placing Angels on Trees, Attending Tree Lighting Ceremonies, Chairing Toy Drives, and Decorating Gingerbread Houses (an activity that devolves into flinging icing and candy all over the very same lobby that they and they alone are responsible for cleaning). Plus, of course, the most important task of all: Teaching Lindsay Lohan The True Spirit of Christmas.
Tad, in the meantime, has been flailing around the woods in a state of adorable near-hypothermia when he stumbles upon the ice-fishing shack of a Gruff Mountain Man. My big beef with this movie is that this bit wasn’t milked more—and no, I don’t know what’s up with all the bovine metaphors, but thanks for asking.
I won’t spoil the ending ‘cause I know y’all are going to watch the jingle bells out of this movie (and also ‘cause it’s basically impossible to spoil the end of every Christmas rom-com, you friggin’ know what’s going to happen). I will, however, commend it for hitting a record number of Christmas rom-com clichés within the first 45 minutes. Sleigh ride? Check. Christmas Village? Check. Bit character who’s a twinkly-eyed old man who is low-key Magic? Check. Gratuitous reference to a previous Netflix Christmas flick? Checkity-check.
I could keep going but it would spoil my next post. Stay tuned for The Christmas Rom-Com Drinking Game, coming soon to a Substack near you.
Oh yeah, and Falling for Christmas? Five Christmas Trees.
The New York Times can go suck a candy cane.