Things I Like Thursday – Christmas Movies

Last week was a Hanukkah recommendation, this week it’s Christmas!

2 reasons:

1. I’ve just needed some Feel Good/Happy Endings stories
2. I’m writing a Christmas romance and I guess the holidays are on my mind.

First up, Single All the Way, the first gay Christmas movie produced by Netflix, starring Michael Urie and Philemon Chambers.  It’s a friends to lovers trope with a bit of love triangle thrown in as tension. 

Peter loves his family in New Hampshire but the thought of going home single again drives him to extremes—he talks his BFF and roommate, Nick, into posing as his lover.  When that ruse quickly falls apart, mom fixes him up with her hunky trainer, James.  In typical romance fashion, wires get crossed, feelings get hurt and they all live happily ever after.

I liked everything about this movie.  The cast, which included Kathy Najimy and Barry Bostwick as Peter’s parents, Jennifer Robertson (Schitt’s Creek) as his sister, Jennifer Coolidge as his aunt and Luke McFarlane as James, were all excellent.  The writing was fine and captured the best of the rom-com genre, with dashes of meddling family and hilarious Christmas pageant.  And the characters, with their quirkiness and great love for Peter and Nick, made me wish that the family home, with all the positive affirmations signs his mother made for everyone, was a real place.  Basically, you root for everyone in this movie because there isn’t a bad guy in the bunch.

A Castle for Christmas, also a Netflix original last year, stars Brooke Shields as a writer escaping to Scotland from a NY scandal and Cary Elwes as the Duke of a crumbling castle with ties to the writer’s past.  This is an enemies to lovers trope with a little bit of forced togetherness to boot.

When Sophie puts in a bid to buy the castle and she proves to Myles that her father once lived there, he reluctantly entertains the offer but insists she live there for the duration of the 90 day escrow.  She agrees and he begins to teach her about the castle and the responsibility that comes with owning the land around it, including the town nearby and the people she’s come to love.  In the end, it comes down to a different kind of love for each of them.

I liked everything about this movie, too.  After all, it IS Things I Like Thursday…  The cast isn’t as star studded as Single All the Way, but they were all lovely and who can resist a Scottish accent? The castle itself and the surrounding Scottish scenery is beautiful.  The story was good and slowly got through the layers of both characters, so they could finally discover what they really wanted.  As the enemies becomes lovers, just like the townspeople who’ve worked so hard for them and Dun Dunbar Castle, we wish them Christmas love.

I’m still in a Christmas mood—got any good movie recommendations?  Leave them in the comments and have a holly jolly weekend!