Holidate Review: Holidon’t

Have you ever seen a movie so painfully terrible that it ended up being funny? 

Netflix’s new movie Holidate is just that. It was a waste of time and money on the production side, but from an entertainment standpoint, it’s actually kind of hilarious in its failure as a film.

The movie follows Sloane and Jackson, who date each other only on holidays so Sloane can get her mom to stop setting her up with people. There are rules including “no feelings attached” and “no hookups.”  Sloane gets the Holidate idea  from her Aunt Susan, who does the same thing every year because of her commitment issues. Shocker. 

Spoiler alert: Sloane and Jackson fall for each other. 

We could all see that one coming the entire time, typical for rom-coms.

This movie is a classic cheesy rom-com, full of clichés and bad acting. There are movies that keep your attention so you never fall asleep, however, this is not one of those movies. This one kept me pinching myself to stay awake. 

 If I’d fallen asleep I might have missed the nine-year-old child, played by Savannah Reina, talking about her “boyfriend” and being more mature and foul mouthed than the actual adults. Reina stood out here in this role and is about all I’d miss from this movie.

Emma Roberts, who filled the role of Sloane, was a much better actress as a teenager on Nickelodeon than she was in this movie. Not to mention renowned Broadway and film actress Kristin Chenoweth could have done so much better than the role of Aunt Susan. They are both too good for this movie, and being associated with this project just tells fans that their agents had a bit of a brain fart, as agents get to read the sides, or piece of the script for those of you who don’t know theatre terms, before deciding if they want their client to audition for a specific role. 

Holidate was green-lighted by Netflix in 2020, just proving that Netflix will greenlight anything and everything this year to keep consumers of their service from being bored out of their minds during the COVID pandemic. Seriously, Netflix could have put out something so much better, but they chose to greenlight this?  I get that there’s a COVID curve in entertainment, but really? You chose to give us this? 

With a 6.1/10 on IMDB, 45% on Rotten Tomatoes, and a 44% on Metacritic, you can officially call this movie the equivalent of a dumpster fire on wheels. 

The two highlights of the movie were on the holidays of 4th of July and Halloween. 

Spoilers: On the 4th of July, Jackson blows his finger off with a firework, which was funny because it was his middle finger. On Halloween, the sister cheats on her husband with Jackson’s friend, played by the actor/social media influencer King Bach. 

These were the two funniest parts of the movie besides the nine-year-old girl being the voice of reason. 

The other parts of the movie fell a bit flat because it tried too hard to be funny. 

Holidate attempts to be a “feel good” type of movie, but the only thing that made me feel good was  the fact that I had a phone in my hands that I could look at during any point of this movie.

If you have time to kill and want a movie to laugh at, I’d definitely recommend this movie. If you’re looking for a good movie, I would not recommend this one at all. To anyone. Ever.