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Hallmark enters the world of Instagram influencers — I mean, Hubgram influencers — in #Xmas, a riff on the classic “we gotta lie about our relationship at Christmas” plot starring Claire Bowen (Nashville) and Brant Daugherty (Pretty Little Liars). Does this holiday romcom deserve all the likes, or will you need to block this one from your TV screen?
#XMAS: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
The Gist: Claire Bowen plays Jen, the head designer and co-owner of a local home goods and lifestyle store. She runs the small business with her sister Ali (Anna Van Hooft), who also has her hands full with a newborn son Reed. But it’s not like Jenuine Designs exactly has to service a crowd of shoppers every day. Even their biggest sales day of the year doesn’t pull the store out of the red.
That’s when Ali has an idea: what if Jen enters a social media contest run by the picture perfect account @HyggeAtHome (don’t worry, the name gets explained)? Not only do all of the finalists get tons of online exposure, the winner gets to work with the most popular lifestyle brand on Insta — I mean Hubgram. And just to make single and childless and self-deprecating Jen’s brand match what they think Hygge at Home wants, they cast a husband (Jen’s best friend Max, played by Brant Daugherty) and Ali lets Jen borrow baby Reed. What could go wrong? Well, it could go right and suddenly Jen could find herself the frontrunner in a very high-profile contest that could boost her store’s sales in the short-term but ruin her friendship with Max and reputation in the long-term. Yikes!
What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Let me tell you — the joy I felt when I realized that #Xmas was giving us a 21st century update of the quintessential holiday romcom, the movie that all Hallmark movies trace their genealogy back to: Christmas in Connecticut. Replace cookbook author with interior design influencer and a farmhouse in Connecticut with an Airbnb in Oregon and voila!
Performance Worth Watching: Hallmark movie mainstay Karen Kruper absolutely steals every single scene she’s in as Jen and Ali’s attention-seeking mother Liz Taylor (and you better believe that name is a setup for a great joke). She was a high school thespian and she is down to help with this charade “as long as I can be involved in everything.” I want Kruper to be involved in every Hallmark holiday movie.
Memorable Dialogue: The way Jen so accurately nails why she’s not the perfect candidate for this contest: “There’s this whole package thing. You gotta have all the pieces. First, you have to be a runway model; then husband, preferably with man bun; children you could introduce to royalty without being horribly embarrassed; and you need to have 100,000 followers that Hygge at Home can turn into subscribers.” This movie knows exactly what it’s satirizing and it leads to some really great moments of truth.
A Holiday Tradition: Oddly tradition-free — maybe because Jen and Ali have mostly been on their own while their mother runs around getting married to every man she falls for (she’s on husband #4, played by the affable Greg Kean).
Two Turtle Doves: As far as titles go, Lifetime’s Merry Textmas (Dec. 4) comes really close to #Xmas. This one is about an app developer who accidentally adds a co-worker to her family group chat — and then the whole family tries to set her up with him during a big family get together in Mexico.
Does the Title Make Any Sense?: It makes sense since social media is a major part of the movie, but hashtags don’t explicitly play a part in the film. What about Under the Influence of Christmas? Or Christmas for the Likes? The Christmas Influencer or Yulescrolling or Follow Me for Christmas or…
Our Take: I don’t know what Hallmark’s done behind the scenes, but they really should’ve angered Candace Cameron years ago because all the unspecified changes she very vocally hates are changes that have resulted in a slate of near-perfect Hallmark movies. To be clear, it’s not like we haven’t seen movies like #Xmas in the past. The “fake fiancé at Christmas” sub-genre is a prominent one, and we’ve seen Hallmark movies use social media and apps as a plot device in the past few years. Brant Daughterty even starred in the app-driven movie Mingle All the Way in 2018!
What’s different, and this is becoming more apparent with every Hallmark movie I review this year, is that the network seems to be letting these movies be about more than just 88 minutes of G-rated buildup before a kiss in front of some twinkling lights. That’s still part of it, yes, but these movies are suddenly also about career dreams, family legacies, troubled marriages — we even got a spy movie.
To talk about #Xmas, this one gets into a really complicated mother/daughter relationship that has very nuanced problems that are handled maturely and the movie — somehow! — still manages to be lighthearted entertainment. I was also constantly surprised by how much this movie had to say about influencer culture and the pressures that people — a lot of them in Hallmark’s target demo, hello — put on themselves to project a perfect image at all times on social media. The title of the film is very 2014, but the script is very incisive about social media in 2022.
All that being said — the movie is a blast! Claire Bowen is great at playing both Jen’s spotlight-averse self-deprecation and the more charismatic “Jen T.” role that she takes on for the contest. Her dynamic with Max (Daugherty) is really bold from the jump; you immediately buy them as best friends who maybe had something going on before. And again, the introduction of mother Liz and the decision to immediately bring her in on the ruse complicated the plot in a truly unexpected and delightful way. I can’t praise this ensemble and the inventiveness of these character arcs — specifically for a Hallmark movie — enough.
Our Call: STREAM IT. #Xmas is #hallmarkgoals.
