Best. Christmas. Ever! review – Netflix comedy might be worst of the season

It’s the junkiest time of the year for streamers, churning out cheap Christmas films that are so tinnily made and carelessly written that enduring them requires more seasonal spirit than even Buddy the Elf could even muster. Will Ferrell’s comedy turns 20 this year, along with Love Actually and Bad Santa, and all recall an unusually magic time for the festive film, each in their different ways earning an easy rewatch slot when November kicks in.

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It’s obviously, stupidly unfair to compare any of Netflix’s many many low-stakes films of the season to those beloved standouts, but while Best. Christmas. Ever! was never intended to be quite as good, it really doesn’t need to be quite this bad. Shoddy seasonal slop had been previously siloed on Hallmark and Lifetime channels, for those who had become accustomed to reduced standards all year round, but Netflix has enthusiastically got in on the game too, and while its brand has lost considerable lustre in recent years, it’s still the same platform that attracts small and big screen auteurs with a vision. Nestled next to the new David Fincher, again expectations would not be as high for a comedy headlined by Heather Graham, but it’s easy to forget throughout the rest of the year just how lackadaisical and low-rent these films can be, lofty comparison or no, from script to direction to performances. Arguably the most important role in these films is set dresser, jamming every scene with enough decorations to distract from the listlessness elsewhere, but no amount of tinsel can disguise how boringly tossed off this one is, a bleak reminder of what’s in store for the next six weeks.

At less than 80 minutes, it’s barely even a movie, more one long montage of bits that never run on long enough to be defined as scenes. Strange given that the film boasts a more interesting pedigree than usual with a script co-written by Charles Shyer, whose words helped to define studio comedies for a while with Private Benjamin, Father of the Bride, Baby Boom and The Parent Trap. Any of that wit or even basic competency is nowhere to be seen here, aimlessly telling the story of two old friends who are reunited during the holidays.

One is a tireless success story (Brandy Norwood) and the other is a self-defined failure (Graham), the former’s braggy Christmas newsletters causing the latter to feel inadequate as well as suspicious. When an absurd set of circumstances forces them to spend Christmas together, their rivalry comes to a head.

It’s a premise that suggests something as salty as it is sweet but the film, directed by Pet Sematary’s Mary Lambert, is as wet as a pile of melting snow, refusing to indulge in any fun cattiness, transforming the pitch for a dark comedy into a sickly family movie, overstuffed with inane life lessons and cloying kids. Something with more of a bite would have allowed our two leads to have a bit more fun but they’re both stuck in sleepwalk mode, a particularly bored Graham struggling to add a much-needed lightness to her comedic scenes. It’s so unclear as to what kind of friendship these two once had (they barely share any scenes alone together) and instead of filling in any of the gaps, the script lazily tries to create vague conflict out of romantic jealousy instead, involving their husbands (including Jason Biggs, lost) when the film should have focused more tightly on the women.

In the last act, the absurd details of the plot become so deranged that the film almost hobbles into so-bad-it’s-good territory with the pair heading for disaster on an out-of-control solar-powered hot air balloon that could be saved by Graham’s underused skills as a failed inventor, whose main flop idea was “chip mitts” that protect hands from Cheetos dust. But it’s too insane too late and not insane enough to forgive the flatness that’s come before.

It might be the year’s first Netflix Christmas film to come barreling out of the production line but it’s hard to imagine it getting any worse.

• Best. Christmas. Ever! is now available on Netflix