Falling for Christmas review – a Netflix Christmas with Lindsay Lohan

We review the Netflix film Falling for Christmas, which does not contain spoilers.

If you’ve ever watched the 1987 film Overboard, or its 2018 remake, and thought to yourself that what it really needed was a Yuletide twist, then Netflix has you sorted. Yep, it’s November, Halloween is over, and Mariah Carey is about to take over our radio stations and shopping center music playlists, which means it’s time for Netflix to crank out some Christmas films courtesy of producer Brad Krevoy.

We all know the formula by now; lots of snow, a romantic storyline, cheesy lines of dialogue and humor, and central performances from some very famous faces but with a script that seems to have been provided by Hallmark or Lifetime. Falling for Christmas is no exception to that formula. It’s glossy, snowy, hits every storytelling beat you can tell it’s going to within the space of its first twenty minutes, and is rubbish.

However, to paraphrase the Christmas classic Love, Actually, it’s solid gold rubbish. Look, nobody is going into this expecting a masterpiece, not even the cast (or at least one hopes not), but at this stage, producer Krevoy and Netflix have hit on a formula that will no doubt guarantee a lot of viewers, a constance presence in the Netflix Film Top Ten for several weeks and be discussed heavily on social media.

Starring Lindsay Lohan as socialite Sierra Belmont, who has a job awaiting at her rich father’s business as Vice President of Atmosphere (yep, for real), and is in a long-term relationship with social media star and influencer Tad (George Young), upon becoming engaged to her boyfriend, Sierra falls from a mountain (cue some questionable CGI and green screen) and wakes up with amnesia where she is promptly taken in by a blue-collar lodge owner and widower named Jake (Chord Overstreet) who comes complete with a familial package that includes an adoring daughter and mother-in-law.

Whatever you think is going to happen based on that plot synopsis, there is a ninety percent chance you are correct. It’s fluff that could say something a little mean about class and privilege – especially in the current climate – but opts not to, instead using the never-ending succession of establishing shots of its opulent snowy locations as a means to evoke the atmosphere and which uses the class and social differences in the world that its character occupies as an excuse to be cutesy rather than profound. We’re supposed to believe Jake is very much on part of a lower class step on the ladder compared to Sierra because he has financial issues, and his B&B isn’t as slick as the hotel Sierra goes to, and yet it still feels like he’s financially fine compared to a large chunk of the rest of the world.

Of course, nobody is coming to this to look at it through that prism or ask those questions. This is escapist fare produced for the holiday season, and the film is pleading with you to just check your brain in at the door and let it wash over you. On those terms, it’s fine, but everything about it, despite the cheesy fun you can have with it, feels safe and really rather conservative. Lohan is charming and lovely, and a lot of her work here harkens back to the mid-2000s when she was starring in things like Herbie Fully Loaded and Just My Luck, and while she has some chemistry with Overstreet, everything is played safe and grounded, so as to just to be sure to not in any way rock the boat with more sensitive audience members.

Every cliche and trope is present and correct here, and in truth, nobody will be going into this expecting the boat to be rocked. It’s glossy, it’s snowy and silly fun, and in the end, that’s all that we should ask of it. Rubbish, but entertaining rubbish.

What did you think of Falling for Christmas? Comment below.

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