Holidate is a new release on Netflix and I was expecting a kind of lame, traditional rom-com that would have a Christmas setting. This isn’t what it is, or not entirely – more on that in a bit.
The plot goes along a traditional path where the two main characters Sloane (Emma Roberts) and Jackson (Luke Bracey) have a meet cute in a mall and even though they initially dislike each other, agree to be each other’s’ holidate so they go to holiday functions together so they aren’t at them alone. I don’t think this will spoil anything when i say that they start to like each other grudgingly and the may even fall in love. I won’t say if that happens as I wouldn’t want to spoil the ending.
All seemed to be as expected until the language and sexual references started to dominate e.g. early on Jackson is at the parents house at Christmas of a girl he is casually dating. He gets a blow job and when it comes to exchanging gifts, he hasn’t bought her one and she says something like “I am good enough for you to cum in my mouth but not get me a present”. That was the first indication that this was going to be more adult than I expected.
As the film progresses the swearing gets more pronounced as does the sexual content. There are scenes that remind me more of a trashy Adam Sandler movie than a rom-com including a scene where Jackson gets part of his finger blown off – just hilarious!
I don’t mind swearing and sexual references but please make them funny and I think I only half-chuckled a couple of times so it fell flat from a comedy perspective. It just came across as more weird and not really knowing what it wanted to be rather than a romantic comedy. The pieces fell into place when I saw that it was produced by McG. He directs terrible films and has produced a not very good one here. It is currently number 1 on Netflix so it is finding an audience.
For Streaming Out Loud! 