EXmas is the latest romantic comedy film directed by Jonah Feingold and written by Dan Steele. It is produced by BuzzFeed Studios and Richard Alan Reid, Michael Philip, and Jason Moring serve as producers. The film has a runtime of about 1 hour and 33 minutes.
The cast of the film includes Leighton Meester as Ali, Robbie Amell as Graham, Michael Hitchcock as Dennis, Kathryn Greenwood as Jeannie, Veronika Slowikowska as Mindy, Steven Huy as Elliott and several others.
The story follows Graham, who surprises his family by turning up for the Christmas holidays despite saying, that he won’t be able to make it due to work. Instead, he gets the biggest surprise to see his ex-girlfriend, Ali, making herself at home with his family. Still recovering from the bitter heartbreak, the two exes battle it out to see who the family will pick to stay through Christmas Day and who must go.
EXmas Review
Cheesy Christmas movies are something that I look forward to every year. Despite the predictable nature, they are the right amount of cringe drama that I would actively indulge myself in. However, EXmas seemed like a letdown right from the first scene. It looks like three theatre students are impromptu(ly) asked to enact a scene where a girl is asking her roommate & their partner about Christmas plans.
They are going to the boyfriend’s house yet assure her that they will come back quickly for her. However, Ali seems to be thinking of accepting her ex-boyfriend’s family invitation, because according to her – a breakup doesn’t always mean you gotta break ties with the nice family too.
This one scene will tell you everything that the film will offer you throughout. Awkward and overlapping dialogues. Most of the time the characters would start a sentence and then mumble half of it. Other times, everybody’s talking at the same time and even if they are trying to land a joke in between, you might not even hear it properly. Add onto that is just awkward acting. I definitely didn’t expect this from the Gossip Girl as well.
The actors’ expressions are either stoic, they are just saying the words without processing or meaning any of them. Or they find it too embarrassing to say these keeping-up-with-the-trendy-lingo dialogues, that they make such weird/shy faces while saying it. Talking about trendy slang, the creators have tried too hard to put in all the funny meme(ic) experiences from the internet, that it isn’t funny anymore. Like Graham’s mother using inappropriate terms, thinking they mean something else or nice.
It’s quite evident that the film was pretty disappointing, considering the fact that the last film by Buzzfeed Studios, Puppy Love, was such a good and heartwarming story. I expected to get the same warm-fuzzy feelings packaged in this holiday movie. It also made me wonder if they genuinely felt like it was a good story or if they intended to make an exaggerated parody guising as one. If the latter is the case then it was a good effort despite the lack of humour.
Overall, it’s an okay(ish) film that you can watch mindlessly while cosying up on your couch, drinking and doomscrolling on social media. Make it a game to take a shot every time an awkward scene comes up and have fun with family, friends or even by yourself.
Rating: 2/5
EXmas will be available to watch on Prime Video on November 17, 2023.
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