Best. Christmas. Ever!

Grade: D+

Last year, Netflix dipped its toe into the Hallmark pool with Falling for Christmas, starring Lindsay Lohan. It was surprisingly endearing, and I thought it worked. They seem to be trying their hand at that again with Best. Christmas. Ever! – a dismal, unbelievable, embarrassing movie. It’s not even the best Netflix Christmas ever.

Brandy Norwood (known in the 1990s as Brandy – she starred as the title character in the Cinderella TV movie) plays Jackie. Her latest braggadicious holiday card portrays her life as the most glamorously perfect one you could imagine. It grinds the gears of Charlotte (Heather Graham). She and her husband (Jason Biggs) are on their way, they think, to her sister’s house for Christmas. Their young son, who saw Jackie’s newsletter in the car and was intrigued by the version of her life that she projected, enters Jackie’s address into the GPS instead of his aunt’s. Nobody manages to double-check the address during this hours-long road trip, so they show up at Jackie’s sprawling, glamorous house. They get snowed in, and Jackie and her family are ever so happy and eager to have them there, so they stay.

I want to mention two superlatives about Best. Christmas. Ever! The most interesting piece of trivia: Mary Lambert, the director of Pet Sematary (1989) and Pet Sematary Two (1992), directed this. It’s what drew me to the film. And the dumbest line in a movie with many is when somebody tells Heather Graham that she’s not attractive. Now that we know the child actors here can learn lines and act precocious, their next step is not trying so hard. Norwood still has great vocal chops, and whenever she sings, even if it’s impromptu, it sounds as if she has a personal mixer on the spot. In one instance, Biggs provides guitar accompaniment, I think. I have no idea what the fingers on his left hand were doing. A jarring supernatural moment – in a movie that otherwise isn’t a fantasy – comes up out of nowhere, and goes over like a reindeer turd in the punch bowl. Profanity rises to a shocking peak with “What the heck are you doing?”

The themes of jealousy arising from newsletters or posts where people make their grass look as green as possible aren’t explored much here. There’s a twist revealed, late in the movie, that had to depend on nobody in Jackie’s family having social media, nobody looking at the news, and Jackie being dishonest in her holiday card. (Disrespectful, too. You’ll know what I mean.) For a film that’s set in the present day, some brouhaha over a snail-mail Christmas letter seems a bit archaic.

Best. Christmas. Ever! can’t seem to manufacture enough substance and conflict to even pass the hour and a half mark. Even the credits are padded with a “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” singalong. Stick with Falling for Christmas. Heather Graham posted on Instagram three days ago that Best. Christmas. Ever! was currently #1 on Netflix. I just checked. That was a quick dive. If it shows up on your menu, you better watch out.

Grade: D+