FALLING FOR CHRISTMAS -- A Cheaply Made and Painfully Dreadful Lindsay Lohan Christmas Movie

Review by Camden Ferrell

Lindsay Lohan made a name for herself in the late '90s and early 2000s, starring in films like The Parent Trap, Mean Girls, and Freaky Friday. Since then, she has found herself starring in fewer movies. Falling for Christmas is a new movie from Netflix and is one of the now relatively uncommon Lohan-led films. Playing out like a cheap Hallmark movie, this is a holiday film that will only please the most die-hard fans of the genre and will bore and offend other audiences with how poorly made the whole thing is.
 
Sierra is the heiress to a wealthy owner of a ski resort. She lives a shallow life with her vain boyfriend, constantly seeking validation from superficial and materialistic things in life. However, after a skiing accident, she gets amnesia and finds herself living with a local lodge owner and his family. Living in this new environment, she slowly learns to regain her humanity and holiday spirit as Christmas approaches. This is a premise that features the same basic structure as most holiday movies, and this doesn’t inherently make it bad, but it certainly makes it unoriginal.
 
It is abundantly clear early on that its writing will not do much to help its cause. The dialogue is cringy and so reminiscent of the many other holiday films that it could be a word for word copy, and I would be none the wiser. There are moments of verbal and physical comedy throughout that fail to land properly and do nothing to increase the enjoyment of the movie.

As mentioned before, Lohan leads this movie and while it’s refreshing to see her in the spotlight again, it’s hard to deny how lifeless and stilted her performance is from start to finish. She’s on the same level as the rest of the cast, which is to say its utterly forgettable at best but more realistically painfully dull. In addition to the weak performances, there is just no chemistry between any characters which undermines any kind of romance or connection that was supposed to be prevalent throughout the film.
 
Nobody goes into a movie like this expecting anything groundbreaking, but one would at least expect some mindless entertainment, and this movie only delivers on the mindless portion of that. It’s made by Hallmark veterans, so it’s no surprise that it feels just like their endless catalog of holiday films. What’s disappointing is that even with Netflix’s (supposedly) larger budget, they couldn’t make anything that felt like it had time and effort put into.
 
Falling for Christmas is a holiday film that you’ve probably seen before, just wrapped differently. It’s borderline unwatchable at times due to how uninteresting and uninspired everything is, but it is also very short which is one of the few commendable aspects of it. If you like Hallmark films, more power to you, this will be right up your alley and surely get you in the holiday spirit. All other viewers need not apply.
 
Falling for Christmas is streaming on Netflix November 10.
 
Rating: 1/5