The Christmas Break

Oh how the mediocre have fallen. Sadly Justin Long never did break through to the A-list, and now he's reduced to starring in poor-tv-standard schlock like "The Christmas Break" as a Chicago lad taking a festive holiday with wife India Mullen to her small Irish family & home-town. There the two get involved in various 'hilarious' (not) scrapes, while figuring out if they should have kids. Prarthana Mohan follows up his abysmal direction of "Christmas Is Cancelled" with an even worse showing here, somehow draining all warmth & charm out of Ireland - not helped by Jed Elinoff & Scott Thomas' lame screenplay. It is awful, Long must be depressed about it, flush it far away.

Two stars out of ten, purely for Justin Long -- he's the real star of this charmless film. He makes a real effort to bring his character to life. But everyone and everything else here is bland and unappealing.

So the basic premise is that you have a couple where one person is ready to start a family and one person isn't. Stir in the fact that one of them seems more enamoured by the other's hometown than the other person is themself. Season with some blatant small town sexism which the enlightened American will do his very best to eradicate. Inevitably, you can expect some things to change without necessarily resolving disagreements.

Where you might expect to see a thoughtful advertisement for the Emerald Isle, this is played for very light laughs and is best avoided.

I tried watching this and got through some of it, but it was so cloying and shallow that I had to stop watching it before wanting to throw things at the TV. I gave it 5 stars because the dialogue, pacing and filmography are adequate, but I never could really care for any of the characters. The peripheral characters that pop up once the couple arrives in Ireland seem so shallow, and their implied backstories have no emotional impact on the viewer. The premise of disagreeing on having children is a big yawn. Have them or don't--whatever. I tuned in because I hadn't been to Ireland, but frankly I could go to YouTube and find videos there if I want because the scenery is surely more interesting than the characters in the show.

I enjoyed this film! I will say I feel like it actually deserves an 8 or 9, but gave it a 10 because it's DEFINITELY better than a 4. But I really enjoyed this film. It's a light hearted christmas Rom Com and it was fun to watch on Christmas. I've always enjoyed Justin Long in films but it's nice to see him doing lower budget films that are not horror movies. I will say some of the reviews said it was "too american" but personally I don't get that feeling. But, as an American I may be a little biased. I will say, the closed captioning is a little off on phrasing, so if you watch with closed captioning on you might get a few random laughs where the words or phrasing is off. But if you are bored of the same christmas movies every year, this is also a great option! Also the same director as "Christmas is Canceled" which i also recomend!

Is this the worst movie ever made? Well there's been a lot of bad Christmas films made and many of them are shown on afternoon TV, so I'd have to say it's not quite as bad as those but boy it is bad! It's another of those movies where an innocent American experiences the kind of Ireland that doesn't exist in reality and never did. Full of lame Oirish stereotypes and a ridiculous predictable plot it's just a total waste of time. In fact I felt embarrassed for the cast, it's that bad. The trashing of Fairytale of New York, probably the best Christmas song ever written, is just unforgivable. The storyline, if you could call it that, is totally predictable which I wouldn't mind if it had a shred of humour or reality but unfortunately it has neither. Give it a wide berth. Nothing to see here.