i’ll start by saying that i largely agreed with the buzzfeed review, just to let you know up front that i am not gonna say you should unreservedly give it a go.

i think my issues with the movie (of which there are many) can be largely boiled down to three Big Things, that i’m gonna try to make as unspoilery as possible here.

1.) the family in this movie is mean. (most of them at least.) they outright and intentionally choose over and over to be cruel to each other, sometimes viciously and violently so. that was a way bigger problem for me than their sort of casual homophobia. i mean you at least know going in that there’s probably going to be some homophobia, right? there’s obviously a reason she hasn’t come out to her parents, so you can expect that that’s probably going to pop up on occasion throughout the movie. 

the outright cruelty of the family was a whole different story. i don’t feel like you really get that from the trailer at all (i actually just rewatched the trailer, and basically the only times they’re remotely nice to each other in the movie are what’s shown there), so it was a bit of an unwelcome surprise. i don’t personally enjoy spending 102 minutes watching people just be relentlessly and actively unkind. like david and alexis are obviously mean to one another sometimes, as siblings occasionally are, but even in s1 when that was at its most prevalent, they would still have moments of levity between them or moments where they’d come together to roll their eyes at their parents—times where it’s clear that they do actually love each other and are on the same side underneath it all. but there pretty much aren’t any moments like that with this family, where you really feel like they actually care about each other, and that, for me at least, makes for a pretty joyless watching experience.

2.) while i empathize with harper’s situation (i mean, looking at her family, i wouldn’t want to have to come out to them either), i do not empathize with her as half of this relationship i’m supposed to be rooting for. 

there are definitely quite a few people who have said they feel seen by what harper is going through in not being able to come out to her conservative family and who have liked seeing themselves and their struggle represented in a very real way. and i think that’s obviously totally valid, and i appreciate that the movie gives voice to those kinds of stories in a way that makes people feel like they’re seeing themselves on screen.

but this isn’t just supposed to be a movie entirely about harper and her struggles with her family. this is billed as a romantic comedy. her relationship with abby should be the central focus of the movie. sure, obviously they’re hiding a secret so they’re not just going to be openly making out in front of everyone or whatever, but in the private moments, the quiet moments, the tiny little moments where it should be like, yes, you, i love you and i’m so glad you’re here with me even though this situation is hard, the movie often runs almost the entire opposite direction. even if she feels like she can’t choose to come out right now, harper can choose to at least treat abby with the sort of kindness and love that is clearly missing from her family situation. but she doesn’t even spend most of the movie treating abby with the level of care that the friend/roommate she’s supposed to be pretending to be deserves, and so instead, i spent the majority of the movie actively rooting for abby to leave.

now, is there a place for that kind of story? sure. if you want to write a movie about how having to hide who you are is making you push away even the one person you’re supposed to love most, there can certainly be value in that. but that’s not a romantic comedy; that’s a different movie entirely.

which brings me to my last point... 

3.) the fact that it’s marketed as a holiday romcom is terribly misleading. this movie is not a holiday romcom. there is hardly any comedy in the movie (it’s mostly in dan’s scenes tbh), even less romance, and certainly very little that i’d consider holiday cheer. yes, as you can tell from the marketing, it has the happy ending you would expect from the genre, but getting there is largely painful and doesn’t, in my opinion, feel at all earned. 

ultimately, i think if you go into it expecting a family drama with a few funny scenes and a sprinkle of a romantic side plot, that will help some. i mean, i basically knew that from seeing what people were saying beforehand and still didn’t enjoy the majority of the movie, but i definitely think it helps to temper your expectations if you’re going to watch it.

now, is it worth all that for dan’s parts of the story?