Written by: Holly Hester
Starring: Alicia Silverstone, Oliver Hudson, Jameela Jamil, Pierson Fodé, Linda Kash, Melissa Joan Hart
Rating: [3.5/5]
Everyone can jokingly lay out the plot of a cheesy Christmas romance film. You can even go online and find skits detailing how the big-city girl finds herself in a small town and meets a local who demonstrates why leaving a metropolis and falling in love in this environment leads to a better life. However, we rarely receive a follow-up on how things turn out for the big-city girl years later and if she perhaps regrets that life-changing decision she made all those years ago. A Merry Little Ex-Mas provides us a case of this and with a wonderful lead in Alicia Silverstone, we get ourselves a fun and cute story.
After years of the storybook marriage she sought years ago, Kate (Alicia Silverstone) and her husband Everett (Oliver Hudson) have decided to get a divorce following a separation with their kids reaching adulthood. This comes as a desire to reignite her career ambitions, which she dropped when marrying Everett to take care of the kids. Things get complicated as they tell the kids, and it appears Everett has already moved on to a new girlfriend.
Serving as a follow-up to pretty much every cheesy Christmas romance movie, A Merry Little Ex-Mas seeks to add a dash of reality to the picture-perfect scenario typically found in those stories. It displays the reality of what it looks like for a woman who gives up the personality she had prior to his marriage and seeks to reclaim it now in older age. No longer having the guilt of ruining her kids’ childhood, she seeks to establish her own life now back in the big city, which certainly causes ripples in this tight-knit community.
What this film manages to accomplish through its story and why it finds success comes from the way it pokes fun at its very own genre. It plays up the stereotypes of his situation while also creating some truly lovable characters. Both the type of character we can connect to and the ones meant to bring the comedic sprinkles to the story. At the center, we have Kate and Everett, who still care for each other but have had these differences in the way they have lived their lives drive a wedge between them. This distinctly appears with Everett putting too much time into running his clinic, where he does not spend the holidays with his family. Then we have Kate and her obsession with environmentalism, apparently, which somehow equates to her grievance. Hard to square that, but at the core of what makes the story work is that Silverstone ad Hudson exhibit what makes these two a couple that worked in the past and could moving forward if they can reconcile their differences together. Having this strong base, therefore, allows all the side characters to add in their distinct flair.
These supporting players truly add the fun to this story, especially when looking at the significant others of not just Kate and Everett, but also their college-aged daughter, Sienna (Emily Hall). Everett’s new girlfriend, Tess, portrayed by Jameela Jamil, presents as this nearly perfect woman that raises the question of what in the world she sees in Everett. Then we have Chet (Pierson Fodé), who enters the story has a perfect himbo. Always respectful, funny, and obviously attractive to anyone who looks at him, every second of screen time participates in is quite the highlight. Nothing will beat his genius idea of how to put out a fire that starts up at a certain point in the film. Truly a chef’s kiss moment in summarizing the contribution this character brings to the overall narrative.
A Merry Little Ex-Mas has all the ingredients necessary to elevate beyond the typical cheesy Christmas romance movie fare. Alicia Silverstone signing on to the lead role alone does more than enough to convince me that this film would have plenty of enjoyment, However, it also contains a premise worth following as we follow a mother and wife trying to think of herself for the first time in a long time now. Everything ties together in a beautifully neat bow while also having some very comedic scenes where jealousy and pettiness get involved with these two soon-to-be-exes.
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