Common Sense Media Review
By Barbara Shulgasser-Parker
,
based on child development research. How do we rate?
Holiday movie about making a holiday movie; sex references.
Parents Need to Know
Why Age 8+?
Any Positive Content?
Where to Watch
Videos and Photos
A Hollywood Christmas
Parent and Kid Reviews
What's the Story?
In A HOLLYWOOD CHRISTMAS, Jessica (Jessika Van) has carved out a niche as Director of Christmas movies. She's shooting one of her typical cookie-cutter features whose plot follows another variation on the basic formula. This time a small-town bakery owner is about to be evicted by a heartless big-city real estate guy only days before Christmas. Enter Christopher (Josh Swickard), a studio numbers guy sent to announce that the network's Christmas movie division is closing, which means Jessica's three-picture deal is off. He's also slashing the budget. Jessica instantly despises him. Cheerful production assistant Reena (Anissa Borrego) explains to newbie Christopher the formulaic elements every Christmas picture requires. And she reports that, although it's July and they're all in big-city Los Angeles, the cliche plot points are echoing in Jessica's relationship with Christopher. To make the picture and the new relationship work, Jessica must give up her perfectionism and Christopher must embrace the power of love.
Is It Any Good?
An interesting feature of the movie-within-a-movie in A Hollywood Christmas is that, in effect, this writes its own so-so review. A tad cleverer than most boilerplate holiday fluff, this film offers a running commentary on every repetitive and formulaic step it takes. The hate-love central relationship, the "magic" of the season, the Christmas spirit, the snow in July, a "real" Santa, even the fact that Christmas movie makers settle for providing "warm, comforting, predictable entertainment," with the emphasis on predictable. The fictional filmmaker here even boasts that comforting predictability is "a feature, not a bug" of the movies she proudly makes.
This movie goes further than the usual required ingredients, adding a good share of nonessential clichés. Actors are portrayed as self-absorbed idiots. Dog owners are witless hysterics. Network execs are heartless shrews who weren't hugged enough as kids. If only life were that simple. But that is the point. The picture offers simplicity to a degree so absurd that when you give yourself over to it, the movie can, in fact, be mindlessly enjoyable in a mundane way. The troubling cop-out on the part of these filmmakers is that there actually are lots of great Christmas movies -- The Bishop's Wife, It's a Wonderful Life, Home Alone, White Christmas, Christmas in Connecticut, Miracle on 34th Street, A Christmas Story, You've Got Mail -- and that it takes more than following a formula to make one.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about whether holiday movies are fun to watch or dull and predictable, or both.
How does the movie address the common failings of holiday movies? Does admitting the weaknesses allow the movie to indulge in them at the same time as overcoming them?
Is it fun to watch some of the inner workings of how movies get made? Where could you learn more?
Movie Details
- On DVD or streaming : December 1, 2022
- Cast : Jessika Van , Josh Swickard , Anissa Borrego
- Director : Alex Ranarivelo
- Inclusion Information : Female Movie Actor(s)
- Studio : HBO Max
- Genre : Romance
- Run time : 91 minutes
- MPAA rating :
- MPAA explanation : mild language and a suggestive reference
- Last updated : December 12, 2022
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