by John Tillyard, Contributing Writer
Lindsay Lohan returns to film acting after three years as Sierra Belmont, the daughter of a wealthy hotel owner in Falling for Christmas. She suffers a blow to the head in a skiing accident, giving her amnesia, and after being taken in by Jake Russell (Chord Overstreet), who runs a small lodge, she stays there as she works to try and remember who she is.
The first thing I need to explain about this story is that Lohan’s character has a massive fall down a mountainside without suffering any physical injury. However, she loses all memory of anything before her accident. If that sounds far-fetched, that’s because it needs to be for the story. I understand not everyone can accept that. This story is not for you if you are one of those people.
There’s another thing about the fundamental premise to acknowledge. It’s another of those stories about a person born into a life of luxury that most of us wish we had. They then suddenly find themselves living with people who have to work hard every day to earn a living and gradually learn the value of working for and achieving what they have in life. So they are telling a story that we’ve seen before. But it has the original element of it happening because her memory being gone, rather than being forced into a hard-working situation. It’s okay to do a story again as long as how it’s told has nuance, which this one does.
These stories may be aimed at people who are envious of those living in high solitary. They usually attempt to show that it’s not a fulfilling or happy life, and that hard work — in this case, Jake and his family running their lodge — is more satisfying. There is much of that here, but they also show that lower-down life is stressful. Jake admits, at one point, that he is sick of it and wants to give up on running the lodge. Sierra comes across as ambitious, even before her accident. The real problem in her life is her father, Beauregard Belmont (Jack Wagner), handing her positions and roles where she doesn’t feel she has much to do, and her boyfriend, Tad Fairchild (George Young), controlling everything they do together.
With that said, I spotted an apparent problem with Sierra’s arc after her accident. Since she’s lost her memory, she’s essentially a different person. Any character arc she goes through while living with Jake isn’t the result of an organic change in her as a person; it’s more because of her character resetting when she starts this new life. We see that she has retained some elements of her personality after the accident — she remains picky about her clothes and food, and doesn’t like people talking down to her — but for the most part, she feels like a different character.
Meanwhile, there is a subplot with Tad, who falls similarly to Sierra without losing his memory. He endeavors to find his way back to civilization, befriending an ice fisherman along the way. It doesn’t serve any purpose beyond comic relief, and the story almost forgets about it during the second act. There isn’t any payoff where Tad appears to have learned something from the experience, which is disappointing, because he is a far more flawed character than Sierra in the opening. But I’ll give it credit for explaining why it takes him so long to find Sierra.
This story may have started as a regular rom-com. But it was dressed up as a Christmas film to make it seem more original. We’ve seen this story before, but not set at Christmas. With Christmas films, you know you’re not looking for high art. You want a warm, fuzzy, feel-good story that makes you enjoy Christmas, and you certainly get that here. The Christmas visuals are one of the best aspects of this. Being set in the mountains of Utah, there is plenty of snow. But there are also a lot of warm interior shots with deep reds and dark greens, Christmas decorations everywhere, and people wearing knitted Christmas jumpers. On top of that, an older man with a white beard helps people get what they want. You can tell from any frame of this that it’s a Christmas film. There are also a few classic-sounding Christmas songs in here that I’ve yet to hear on the radio. They even reference Lohan singing “Jingle Bell Rock” in Mean Girls.
In terms of performance, Overstreet does an excellent job as the down-on-his-luck individual with his heart in the right place. I like that he’s the lead’s ultimate love interest, but they don’t play him up as just charming; he has a couple of moments where the stress of his life gets to him, and he’s shown to be mad, but not at a level where you dislike him. Young is the actual standout performance, though, showing an absolute span of emotions as he acts like a bit of a jerk, but in a way that suggests he doesn’t know any better, making you love and hate him at the same time; I kind of wish he’d been in this more. On the negative side, after impressive dual roles in both Freaky Friday and The Parent Trap,Lohan is disappointing. There’s a noticeable lack of emotion in many of her lines, as they were all delivered in the same monotone throughout. She’s been out of acting for a while; maybe she’s a little out of practice.
Continuing with negatives, one element of the third act disappointed me. Sierra tries to get Jake to do something he feels uncomfortable doing for understandable reasons. Jake’s debate about bringing himself to do this thing, along with whether he should do it at all, is fascinating. Ultimately, however, whether he should do it doesn’t matter because other characters step in and do it for him. It’s a dilemma with an artificial resolution that comes out of nowhere.
Falling for Christmas will not give you surprises or anything you’ve yet to see. It gives you the lovely Christmas feeling many other Christmas films have given. While there’s nothing wrong with that, the story’s emotional charm sometimes seems a little forced. For such a straightforward story that’s padded out with a subplot, there are a lot of emotional plot points brought up that are quick attempts to tug at your heartstrings. The humor comes mainly from Young’s character and some side characters, and there aren’t many gags or humorous situations. But I was never bored, and it did make me feel very Christmassy.
Score: 7/10
Falling for Christmas is currently streaming on Netflix
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