Holidate extends its plan to keep B-list stars gainfully employed by subsidizing their lavish lifestyles by producing movies that people can watch while folding their laundry. The twist is, instead of trying to dress down incredibly beautiful actors, this movie leans hard into acknowledging their attractiveness while also positing a new problem for actors in holiday rom-coms, their fear of commitment! Chris Hemsworth was too busy to make this movie, so someone must have squinted their eyes and chosen Luke Bracey from a lineup at the local soup kitchen.
Wife says that there are some shitty stereotypes going on that take from full enjoyment of Holidate: read, the Black Best friend who plays a lecher or the other black dudes From The Mall with no personality that Kristen Chenoweth brings home as dates or Cynthy Wu who plays the Uptight Asian, who in one cringe scene, is confronted by her worldly wise white women mentors so that she can loosen up sexually. Like any movie that cover holidays throughout the year, Holidate strains to cover the spring: it’s hard to justify the urgency of having a date for St Patrick’s Day and in the face of a complete lack of Latino/a actors, Cinco de Mayo feels pretty shallow–typified by a montage of tequila shots and panchos. Why not celebrate Holi with the Indian actors? Or do a Chinese style New Years Celebration in January? Not entirely sure why we feel trapped in the traditional holidays of one slice of America.
The mean humor of Sloan and Jackson at parties is very Emma and Little Women, but it fizzles out fairly quickly on the calendar. Nothing really resolves the infidelity plot that comes out of left field at the end and feels like an actually challenging moment. I’m surprised that there aren’t more video essays about holiday movies or tropes of Christmas films (that aren’t Hallmark-made), but it looks like Slate had a piece back in 2012 during a “listicle” phase that’s no longer available. If you happen to have some good takes on this phenomenon and how to improve upon the year of holidays model, I would be very interested.
