Holiday Crashers
Writers: Tracy Andreen, Lee Friedlander, Hope Juber
Director: Michael Robison
Cast: Lyndsy Fonseca, Daniella Monet, Chris McNally, Jag Bal, Keith MacKechnie
Every year, Hallmark releases dozens of holiday movies — and Pop Heist staffer Brett White has seen them all. All Heistmas long, Brett checks out what Hallmark has to offer, analyzing each movie's setting (Home for the Holidays); calling out the most heavy-handed exposition ('Twas the Night Before This Movie); praising any LOL moments (Ho Ho Ho); singling out the scene-stealer (They Brought Presence!); and deciding if the title matches the story (Exactly as Advertised). To top it all off, each movie is judged on six quintessential Hallmark qualities to determine once and for all if this Hallmark Christmas movie hits or misses the (Hall)mark. Read more Hallmark Hit-or-Miss reviews here.
Lyndsy Fonseca (Where Are You, Christmas?) plays Toni, a super competent, high-powered, Ivy League-educated sales associate at a Christmas shop. If something seems off with that setup, that's because it is! Toni totally graduated from Harvard — I mean Haltward — and now she's delivering holiday party invitations alongside her equally aimless bestie, Bri (Daniella Monet). To fight off their millennial malaise, Bri quite literally snatches invites to every holiday party in town. That gives Bri and Toni an excuse to try on a ton of different lives every night as they mingle with the local elite. Chris McNally (When Calls the Heart) plays Justin, a lawyer and resident elite who bumps into Toni at not one, but many of these holiday parties. And when a calamitous coincidence outs Toni's legal-ish background, Justin leaps at the chance to bring on his mysterious crush as a consultant on a major case. But, uh, Toni never passed the bar. It looks like Toni's holiday crashing has left her trapped in a holiday wreck.
Home For the Holidays: After matriculating at Haltward Law (which I think is near Carmbrudge, Merssarchubrits), Toni's moved back to her hometown of Westport, Connecticut (pop. 27,141). This idyllic little urban center is home to at least a dozen fancy schmancy organizations and charities that host equally fancy schmancy holiday parties — and at least one skyscraper housing at least one major law firm.
'Twas the Night Before This Movie: Toni's pause from her stalled law career is explained via a tense back and forth with her dad (Keith MacKechnie). "It's been quite a pause and now you work at a letter shop!" "Invitations. We print invitations."
They Brought Presence: Daniella Monet absolutely steals every scene she's in — and that is hard to do when your scene partner is Lyndsy Fonseca. Bri is stylish, sassy, smart, and the perfect ride-or-die for Toni — with emphasis on the "or die" part. Bri is a risk-taker! And, in a truly surprising move, Bri gets her own romantic subplot with its own ups and downs. And IMO, it's the better of the movie's two romances.
Ho Ho Ho: All the party-crashing provides for a lot of bonkers one-liners and montages with A+ non-sequiturs. My favorite: when we cut to Bri saying, "Formula 1 is far better from the pit, trust."
As Advertised: The title Holiday Crashers really does sum up what this movie is all about — until it doesn't.
It's really gonna take a lot for any other Hallmark movie to top the first 30 minutes of Holiday Crashers. The movie opens with such a big burst of energy, so many laugh-out-loud moments, that it immediately pulls you in and never lets go. That's due almost entirely to Fonseca and Monet, who have an easy, lived-in chemistry that really sizzles more than every other dynamic in the movie. They give off big bestie energy, and it's infectious. And when the crashing starts? It's on. Toni and Bri dive into all of these scenarios with the gusto of SNL performers, going big and improvising their way into some of the funniest exchanges I've seen on this channel. And it all works because Fonseca and Monet are just so endlessly entertaining. I would absolutely watch two solid hours of these two crashing parties.
The problem is that the fun of the movie, watching these two gently scam their way into upper crust shindigs, gets cut off at the halfway point. You can practically feel this chaotic, runaway sleigh slam on the brakes when a truly Hallmarkian coincidence sends Toni and Bri to a law firm's holiday work retreat. If Toni and Justin's relationship were as much fun as Toni and Bri's, maybe the movie's swerve into traditional Hallmark holiday romance wouldn't feel so forced. There's also the dubious nature of their meet-cute, which — I'm no lawyer, but I feel like everything Toni and Justin do in this movie would get them in major trouble? Not cute Hallmark trouble. I'm talking USA's White Collar trouble.
Still, even though Holiday Crashers loses a lot of its verve in the second half, it still delivers just enough swoons and LOLs to make it an early entry into the 2024 top 10.
