"Mom's Christmas Boyfriend" is a Cautionary Tale About What Happens When You're Not Slutty Enough

This is the last holiday movie review I promise.

I was going to stop doing these reviews because, frankly, we have been watching some real stinkers. Just pure bore and slog (Bore & Slog is actually my new digital ad agency).

Additionally, as a member of a capitalist society, I’ve noticed these posts are not doing numbers among my very small following. What I have noticed is you all LOVE when I’m depressed or talk about drinking, but hate a little Christmas cheer?.… Checks out.

But then, I thought you deserved this one because it was super bizarre. You know how I said the kids in these movies are super miserable or weird? The kid in this movie is neither. She runs her mom’s life including down to who she sleeps with and it’s incredible.

THE PLOT: Emma is an architect who adopted her 10-year-old daughter Lily from China when she was a baby. Emma is constantly architecting apparently (although we only ever see her build gingerbread houses), so has never had time or desire to find a man. When her and Lily go to a department store, Lily secretly enters the store’s “Christmas wish” contest to get her mom laid get her mom a boyfriend. After Emma wins with hands down the most complicated wish in the contest, her and Lily realize they don’t need a man to complete their family the guy who ran the store’s contest is hot and should be new daddy.

THE REASON: I haven’t heard of a Christmas boyfriend since Taylor Swift came out with ‘Tis the Damn Season—a perfect Christmas song that supposes Taylor sleeps with townies when she’s home at her parents’ house during the holidays. It all comes back to Taylor Swift, doesn’t it? It’s actually her birthday today, which is so close to Christmas, so we might as well just call her the new Christ.

BEST DIALOGUE:

“I don’t want attention. I’m an architect! I’m not used to all of this!”
- Emma when she wins the contest and becomes the star of every local and national news story. It’s not revealed to Emma until they’re on air that the wish Lily made in the contest was for her to get a man. Then she gets messages like this:

Babe, DO NOT OPEN “present for you.” Especially not in front of your daughter. I actually wouldn’t open any of these, especially “touched by your story.”

“I have entrepreneurial ideas about giving back.”
- Clark Winters, the guy Lily picks for her mom out of all the messages because he’s hot. He turns out to be an influencer using the contest for clout for his matchmaking business. Timely!

You know he’s an influencer because he takes a video of his food.

The “dialogue” in this very erotic dough scene:

“BEST” PARTS:

• This is an actual good part: the stars are not white! One of the few white people is Clark Winters, the villain! It’s very rare for that to be the case. Take that, Trump’s America!

• Lily is very much influenced by Emma’s bff Brit, who is a queen who is constantly talking about hooking up with different guys. If Emma had just been out on the town more, Lily wouldn’t have had to take matters into her own hands and basically post a Backpage ad for her mom.

  Get cuffed, Mom!
  

• So the B plotline of all of this is that Zach, the department store ad man who ends up “winning” Emma’s heart, is in danger of losing his job along with his business partner Brady (the other white guy). They hold the contest in order to make a big splash for the department store, and instead of Emma thinking it’s sus that Zach is literally running the contest then starts hitting on her, they fall in love. And, the department store owner says this is actually even better for the store. So, love AND capitalism both win!!!

“IT WASN’T IN THE BUDGET” MOMENTS

These elves were in the department store and referred to as cute.

So different, indeed!

FUN FACTS:

Zach Smadu who plays—get this—Zach, was in an episode of Degrassi. It was past what I consider the canon seasons (1-7), but he still got a Wiki page with these pulled as his notable quotes as Randy the record producer:

Legendary!

WOULD I REWATCH THIS? Yeah, probably! It’s kooky and sexier than you think!

My Christmas wish is that you become a paid subscriber <3 If that’s not in the budget right now, I’d love if you passed this along to a friend!