Why Holidate Isn't Your Mom's Romantic Comedy
Being single for the holidays can be a rather annoying prospect, depending on what sort of family is waiting for you when you fly home to visit. Your parents may be perfectly fine with you forgoing the date and arriving with your chihuahua Snuffles as your only life companion. Or, they may be overbearing and meddlesome, always trying to set you up with the guy, gal, or enby that's "just perfect" for you. Neflix's new holiday-themed rom-com Holidate plays on the latter to deliver plenty of laughs or tears depending on how deeply you relate to the main characters' plight.
In the film, Sloane, (American Horror Story's Emma Roberts) and Jackson (Luke Bracey) are fed up with their meddlesome families sticking their noses into their love lives. They don't want their parents setting them up on dates or their families interrogating them when they show up to Christmas or Easter without suiters on their arms, so they devise a plan. The two form a plutonic couple as they accompany each other on the holidays to stem any questions or glances they may have previously received.
Some of the humor in Holidate isn't exactly what you'd expect from the more tame, traditional rom-coms of years past. In fact, according to Emma Roberts in a recent interview on NBC's TODAY, Holidate "is not your mom's rom-com."
"A fresh, inappropriate twist"
Roberts may have been hinting that Netflix's Holidate is likely targeted at a younger adult demographic when she said the film "is not your mom's rom-com," but she quickly followed it up by saying, "but I think your mom is going to love it." Your mother very well might enjoy the movie, but it really depends on the sense of humor she has. Roberts admits, "It's very nostalgic, like those old rom-coms we love, but it does have a bit of a fresh, inappropriate twist here and there."
The movie breaks some old, more conservative traditions. In the early minutes, Jackson goes to a Christmas get-together with Carly, a woman he's only been on two dates with, and Carly's mother shows him a picture from the day Carly had gotten her first period, then tells him she and Carly's father are "perfectly comfortable" with the couple sleeping together in Carly's childhood bedroom. It might not seem like much, but that's only the tip of the "make your mother uncomfortable" iceberg. In that same scene, Jackson admits he didn't get Carly a gift because he barely knows her and didn't expect to be gift-giving, to which Carly (in front of her parents) responds, "I see. So, you know me well enough to [a censored sexual act], but you don't know me well enough to get me a Christmas present?"
The inappropriateness of the film is rooted in the comically sexual nature of the interactions between characters — of which there are many — but that's not the sole factor the movie relies upon. Holidate has all of the classical humor elements and plot points you'd expect in a romantic comedy, and it's definitely worth a watch... even if your mother isn't a fan.