Some movies are movies. Other movies are cocoa. “A Merry Little Ex-Mas” is the latter. It’s a small town, big family, red and green sweater, choose your own Christmas tree, bake your own scones, craft your own ornaments, 18 marshmallows in your piping hot cup of cocoa. With a candy cane in it.
Alicia Silverstone stars as Kate, a woman who moved to the small town of — spins the wheel of random holiday-themed town names — “Winterlight.” (Ooh, that’s an insufferable one, I love it.) Anyway, Kate was going to be an architect, but her husband Everett (Oliver Hudson) wanted to move back to Winterlight to work as a doctor, so she put her plans on hold. A quarter century and two kids later, she now works as the local handyperson, fixing everyone’s houses and encouraging them to install solar panels and do their own composting. Also, Kate and Everett are about to get divorced.
They grew apart but they don’t dislike each other. That’s probably why everyone in Winterlight makes fun of them for splitting up, and makes even more fun of them when they call it “conscious uncoupling.” In this world you either stay married or separate miserably. That’s family values for ya!
Kate wants one more traditional Christmas before her youngest child goes to college, and before Kate moves back to Boston. But her plans get derailed when she finds out Everett’s already dating a woman named Tess (Jameela Jamil), who is younger and more successful and makes him want to be a better partner and father than he’s been in years. So Kate accepts the advances of a handsome young hunk named Chet (Pierson Fode), who is adorable and sexy and a great listener, just to make him jealous. Then again, maybe Kate and Chet could also be perfect together, in a kooky kind of way.
There’s something refreshing and reassuring about romantic comedies where nobody’s partner, even the ones they’re destined to break up with, are bad people. They’re not even terrible matches. It turns out a lot of people are pretty lovely if you give them a chance. There’s a sweet scene where Tess, having a holiday dinner with her new boyfriend and his ex-wife and their two kids, says she feels like the protagonist of a holiday rom-com herself. You know, the ones where a big city gal meets a gorgeous small town doctor and moves to Christmasville, USA. Nobody is the villain in this story. They’re all protagonists looking for their own story. They’re just nice.
None of them, however, are nicer than Alicia Silverstone, who takes this little present of a movie and gives it a good home and makes it feel loved. Silverstone has been one of the most endearing on-screen performers for a long time and she’s long overdue for a career renaissance. I doubt “A Merry Little Ex-Mas” is going to change her stars, but it’s proof positive she’s still got star power. The script by Holly Hester (“The Royal Treatment”) is warm and personable, but in lesser hands it could also fall as flat as a flat… Christmasy… thing. What’s flat at Christmastime? A decorative placemat? Let’s go with a decorative placemat.
“A Merry Little Ex-Mas” doesn’t coast on Silverstone’s approachable, honest charms. It’s not like nobody else is doing their job. Jamil knows how to play the other woman who’s also a really decent woman. Hudson is pretty good as a guy who learned how to be an attentive partner only after losing his wife, and applies those lessons right away in a relationship with someone else. So we share Kate’s annoyance that he could have been trying harder this whole time. But hey, at least he’s trying now.
Their daughter also has a new British boyfriend, Nigel (Timothy Innes), who’d be a lovable weirdo if he wasn’t also obsessed with “Harry Potter” and still quoting those books, now, after every horrible thing J.K. Rowling has done to hurt trans people. You’d think Everett’s two dads might have something to say about that, but I guess it’s the holidays. Lots of people put up with a relative’s bigoted bullcrap just to get through it. At least Nigel’s obsession doesn’t crop-dust the whole movie. He keeps his farts to his own scenes.
Look, I have a soft spot for sappy holiday rom-coms. I like ‘em so thick you could get your hands stuck on their maple tree trunks. It’s easy to look down on this whole subgenre and it’s also easy to be a big ol’ jerk, so let’s not do that either. Some Christmas rom-coms argue that staying in a small town forever is a gift, and some accidentally make it look like a curse, but someone else once said — I think it was Carlos Santana — that the secret to happiness is to want what you already have.
In the middle of winter, when the nights are long and cold, and the economy is a total wreck, and don’t even get me started on the rest of it, appreciating what you have isn’t the worst thing in the world. Even if it does seem like small consolation, but I digress. The point is, the holidays can be a bummer, so if cheesy, low-ambition snugglefests like “A Merry Little Ex-Mas” make you feel better, more power to you.
Unless you’re still quoting “Harry Potter” … Nigel.
