Freevee enters the holiday romcom arena with Hotel for the Holidays, a Christmas movie that’s positively packed with meet-cutes, misunderstandings, and magic moments. But is this the kinda movie you want to check out? Or are you going to check out the minute it starts?
HOTEL FOR THE HOLIDAYS: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
The Gist: Madelaine Petsch (Riverdale) plays Georgia, the manager of New York City’s venerable Hotel Fontaine — “venerable” being code for “old and with lots of cracks in the walls.” There she oversees a staff of good-natured employees who are all preparing for Christmas Eve’s Jingle Mingle party. There’s Kiki (Jamison Belushi), a concierge who’s trying to find enough birds in Midtown to bring “The 12 Days of Christmas” to life; Milton (Neil Crone), a handyman who has a sneaking suspicion that bartender Flo (Jayne Eastwood) has a crush on him; and Chef Luke (Aladdin’s Mena Massoud), who prepares lunch for Georgia every single day, yet she still hasn’t picked up on the fact that he’s into her. This particular week before Christmas sees a number of interesting guests check into the hotel, including a prince who’s no longer a prince (Max Lloyd-Jones) and a pop star in need of a hit single (Kayleigh Shikanai).
If you can’t tell already, there are a lot of storylines to follow in this one, but the primary one involves Georgia trying to find the money she needs in order to open up a sister hotel for the Fontaine that’s modern with crack-free walls. Her plan: pitch this surefire winner of an idea to the ex-prince and hope his formerly royal pockets still have some royal cash in them. She needs to woo him in secret, though, because she doesn’t need her co-workers — especially Luke — to find out what’s going on.
What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: This is a holiday movie in the Love Actually style, albeit done with a number of TV movie tropes.
Performance Worth Watching: Madelaine Petsch and Mena Massoud are both solid actors who will one day make great holiday romcom leads. Unfortunately, the crowded cast and dozen storylines leave you wanting to see a lot more of Petsch and Massoud together. There’s a lot of talking about their dynamic going on in this movie because there isn’t time to properly show it.
Memorable Dialogue: There are a few funny lines in this one, including one from pop star Pandora posing as holiday temp Pam. Kiki tells her to show up for work at 8 in the morning, to which “Pam” replies, “Don’t be silly. 8 o’clock doesn’t come in the morning… does it?” But the dialogue that resonated with me most came from Luke: “I don’t even know what this is because you won’t tell me!”
A Holiday Tradition: The movie builds up to the Jingle Mingle party at the Fontaine, which is held on Christmas Eve for all those who otherwise don’t have plans or a place to be.
Two Turtle Doves: You could toss a number of this year’s holiday movies into a blender and come up with Hotel for the Holidays. You want a movie just about the hospitality industry? Try One Delicious Christmas (Discovery+), Falling for Christmas (Netflix), or A Cozy Christmas Inn (Hallmark).
What about a Christmas movie about a chef? There’s Sweet Navidad (Lifetime), Baking All the Way (Lifetime), Serving Up the Holidays (also on Lifetime, WTF), Catering Christmas (Great American Family), and Christmas on the Slopes (UPtv).
Movies about pop stars going undercover and/or interacting with normals? In Merry Measure (Hallmark), Christmas with You (Netflix), or Undercover Holiday (Hallmark).
There are too many movies about royalty. The ones about princes specifically include Inventing the Christmas Prince (Hallmark), Crown Prince of Christmas (Great American Family), A Prince and Pauper Christmas (ION), A Royal Corgi Christmas (Hallmark), and A Royal Christmas on Ice (Great American Family).
[Deep breath] Lastly, holiday movies about couples brought together by love of dogs: The Dog Days of Christmas (Lifetime), Dognapped: Hound for the Holidays (ION), and A Royal Corgi Christmas (Hallmark).
Reminder: all of those movies are from 2022.
Does the Title Make Any Sense?: The title sounds wonky before you know the premise and realize that you have to put “Georgia wants a” before it in order for it to make sense. The movie could be titled Christmas at the Fontaine, which sounds classy even if it leaves you wondering what a Fontaine is.
Our Take: Every streaming service is getting in on the original holiday romcom train these days, and it makes sense. Netflix’s A Christmas Prince brought the genre to the forefront of seasonal pop culture consciousness in 2017 and these types of movies have only grown in prominence every year. That’s why it makes total sense that Freevee, the Amazon-owned streaming service formerly known as IMDbTV, would want to get in on the fun for their first holiday season post-relaunch. And y’know, casting Cheryl Blossom and Disney’s Aladdin as the leads was a very good decision, one that could have immediately established the tone that Freevee’s going for in their holiday movies and set them apart from Hallmark and Netflix. Holiday romcoms with Gen Z and the youngest of young Millennials as the target audience? Go off, Freevee!
That isn’t exactly what happens in Hotel for the Holidays. This movie juggles far too many storylines for any singular vibe to be made clear. There are nearly a dozen relationships, from friendships to courtships, that we’re asked to keep track of during this 85-minute movie, and that leaves all of them wanting.
Any one of these plots could have filled a movie of the same length — remember the exhausting Two Turtle Doves section above?? What we get instead is a movie that feels like the Season 1 finale of a TV series — a fine series, to be fair! This cast is talented and the Hotel Fontaine has a lot of character, way more than most of the hotels and inns we see in these movies. But the movie throws us into the Fontaine’s day-to-day and spends no time establishing any of these character dynamics. That’s because instead of spending a few scenes introducing Luke and Georgia, maybe showing us the first time Luke makes Georgia a grilled cheese, maybe building up any sort of romantic tension, the movie spends that time having Kiki banter with a rude Santa stationed in front of the hotel all for a very minuscule payoff at the Jingle Mingle. The movie is about Georgia and Luke, so let it be about Georgia and Luke.
It’s a shame, too, because the movie has some really excellent moments of camp, whether intended or not — like a stumped Pandora staring blankly at a Word doc that just has “Pandora’s new hit song” written at the top of it, or the fact that this brilliant chef painstakingly prepares Georgia a single, sad looking grilled cheese for lunch. There is fun to be had here when the movie isn’t hopscotching from one subplot to the next.
Our Call: SKIP IT — or if you’re a fan of Petsch and/or Massoud, carve out 20 minutes from your holiday schedule to watch their storyline.
