The Holiday Exchange

The dialogue is not great and the acting is average to good, and the characters were all too well-off for my liking. But despite that I sensed gay actors were probably involved in its making and that is a bonus. I did not like their lives as represented here much, but who am I to judge ? Most popular heterosexual mainstream films have the same kind of supposed glamour, and that as they say is Hollywood. The plot is easy to follow. Four guys go away for Christmas, exchanging apartments and they find love. One apartment in Los Angeles and the other in an obscure place that looked like a cute Romanian town. It borders on the unbelievable, but then a lot of films do and we accept the fantasy. Samer Salem as a writer was in my opinion the best actor, and Taylor Frey was fun and at the same time irritating to watch. All four find love and how often does that happen either in life or on film? To sum up it is escapist fantasy and so are most of Vincente Minnelli films and Douglas Sirk. This film is arguably lacking their magic, but it does have a lot of wish fulfilment and to a large extent this is the Hollywood ethos, and most do not complain about that.

This movie is an absolute utter abomination. That said, my two favourite things in this 'English' themed American movie is how a Mocha coffee is referred to as Coco Coffee. And also the conversation that goes something like 'he doesn't have a coffee machine he only has a kettle' 'omg how does he live without coffee?' .... WTF!!! You can make coffee using a kettle you know? Did you know?

Acting is like watching a B Movie. What makes it worst is that this isn't a B movie. This is meant to be taken seriously. As an added bonus the story is basically a rip off of the holiday which I only just re watched recently. Where The Holiday is absolutely and utterly gorgeous and cute. This is a cringe fest of badly written scenes. The only way to enjoy this is if you take the piss out of it at the same time.

Overall a decent, albeit cliche, film. What makes it nearly unbearable is the acting from the lead. It's stilted, unconvincing, and just feels one note - always annoyed. Certainly not a protagonist you root for.

The real star is the lead's mom played by Kyle Richards. I knew she was a Real Housewife but didn't realize she had an acting background.

May still be worth watching if you can make a drinking game out of it. However, if you're looking to see some romantic chemistry and to feel that "butterflies" feeling, the lack of connection between the main couple will likely leave you disappointed.

Admittedly I only started this movie because it's a gay Christmas movie. In the end I really enjoyed it. The beginning was rough and the cheesiest part, but I got into it after the first act. I liked all the main characters and their diversity (the actors and their storylines). The secondary characters were all somewhat forgettable. I'm surprised Kyle Richards is at the center of the poster as she's barely in it. Overall it was predictable, but pretty good acting and a little more depth than the average Hallmark-type movie. I'm not a big movie person and tend to only watch around the holidays (mostly classics like Home Alone, A Christmas Story, etc) but this was a worthy watch.

Holiday movies are not meant to change the world, just brighten it up for a couple hours. This movie knows exactly what it is, doesn't pretend to be anything else, and it delivers. Swapping cities for the holidays with a stranger, and both of them finding love is nothing new, but it's also always a warm feeling, which is great to have in a cold winter night. Some great supporting performances from Kyle Richards and Ashley Fink (who actually gets my favorite moment of the film and pulls the one Lone tear out of my cynical heart).

Maybe I'm a bit biased because it's Taylor Frey, and he and his husband are talented Handsome happy couple goals, but this was great Christmas Eve watching.