For many people, a familiar pastime in the weeks leading up to major winter holidays is gathering with family members and watching holiday movies, be they in a theater or on television. During the month of December, as has become tradition, the Falls Free Press will reprise “The 12 Films of Christmas,” focusing on new holiday movies for the year 2022—a year that can still do with plenty of peace and joy. We will review each film, whether naughty or nice, and let you know where to watch.
There are so many things a reviewer can say about Lindsay Lohan,usually relating to her 2004 hits Mean Girls or Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen. Despite her handful of roles in films and television since the late 1990s, Lohan fell off the media radar about a decade ago, veering off into other ventures. Given her time away from acting in well-known movies, her role in Netflix’s Falling for Christmas could have been a breaking comeback for the actress. Sadly, this is sure not to be the case.
Falling for Christmas features Lohan as Aspen hotel heiress Sierra Belmont who, after getting engaged to her useless knucklehead boyfriend Tad, falls off a cliff and loses her memory. Having no proof of identity, Sierra agrees to stay with the nearby bed and breakfast owner, Jake (played by Glee’s Chord Overstreet) who found her unconscious in the snow. With no knowledge of her: wealthy lifestyle, father who’s away on business, or finance lost in the woods, Sierra becomes attached to Jake and his family– daughter Avy and mother-in-law Alejandra, taking on the name Sarah as she helps the family improve their business which is struggling to stay afloat, as well as falling for her loving savior. Upon returning from his trip, Sierra’s father learns that she is missing, and finds her at B&B.
Overall, Falling is a trainwreck of multiple proportions. Lohan attempts to portray a twenty-something snob but instead appears to be in her forties with no sense of her surroundings. Upon acting like a middle-class worker, her attitude properly changes, however, this is also where a significant lack in her acting chops becomes evident, either due to her own skills or the inadequate script. Any and all humor in the film falls directly upon George Young as Tad, a social media entrepreneur whose actual online projects are never actually revealed. After introducing Tad, who is constantly recording his exploits on his phone, the rest of the film shows him laughably discovering the wonders of simple life while also complaining much of the time. The real head-scratcher of the entire story though, is that Sierra not only helps save the struggling B&B in less than four days, but also falls in love with Jake, his family, and middle-class life, without having any idea of how the world works. All of this is only revealed during the time her father was away on business.
There are plenty of holiday movies available to stream this season, including the other 11 films in this series, many of which may also include dumbstruck women with amnesia falling in love with working-class family men. Despite trying to review the best films this year, the popularity of Lohan was an important factor in covering Falling for Christmas. While caring very little for the film, nevertheless it’s worth serving as background noise if only one wishes to laugh and cringe at the story and actors’ inability to produce a decent movie.
Falling for Christmas is available to stream on Netflix.
