Oh. What. Fun.
- Dec 26, 2025
- 3 min read
Oh. What. Fun.
Not. So. Much.
An immense waste of a talented cast, this new Prime holiday movie is like a gorgeous stocking loaded with empty boxes.
None of the actors are going on the naughty list, giving their all against a very weak screenplay that lands only a few laughs and zero emotional heft.
Michelle Pfeiffer (The Witches of Eastwick) plays Claire, an overworked Mom trying to create a PERFECT Christmas for her grown children, who are all flying in for the annual Yuletide get together.
The always hilarious Denis Leary (Rescue Me, The Ref) is sadly underused as Claire's husband, Nick. How you can take one of the funniest guys on the planet and leave him stuck in the garage building a Barbie house for half the film is beyond me. The most fascinating part of the role is how Leary's Boston accent comes and goes in intensity.
Felicity Jones (Rogue One, Inferno) nails her American accent as daughter Channing, who arrives with her husband Doug, (Jason Schwartzman) their kids and a lot of baggage in tow.
Claire and Nick's son Sammy is a pampered underachiever, well played by Dominic Sessa. He's a great actor and made an all-time great holiday film with "The Holdovers" in his film debut. At least when Sessa's on screen, he holds your attention.
Chloe Grace Moritz (Let Me In) is given very little to do as Taylor, who shows up every year with another new girlfriend, each one "amazing and the love of her life" for a few weeks anyway.
It's great to see Joan Chen (The Last Emperor, Twin Peaks) as Jeanne Wang-Wasserman, Claire's neighbor across the street who seems to have nailed every aspect of the perfect holiday. Any time that Chen and Pfeiffer are squaring off, it gives the film a brief moment of comic spark.
Claire spends the first quarter of the film obsessing over her children nominating her as Christmas Mom of the Year for her favorite daytime talk show starring Zazzy Tims (Eva Longoria).
As her quest for the perfect Christmas spins out of control and everyone else in the family delves into self centered antics, Claire takes off on what's supposed to be a hilarious journey of self discovery on Christmas Eve.
If that quest was funny, or emotional, or enjoyable, it could have been fun.
Poor Pfeiffer is stranded in a WB sitcom level, predictable script by Director Michael Showalter. I have no idea what went wrong here, as Showalter has made some really good films before, including "The Big Sick". I also enjoyed his Sally Field film "Hello, My Name is Doris" that came out ten years ago.
This one is a stinker.
At one point, Claire, out of the blue, decides to shoplift, delivering a slapstick scene out of "Mall Cop" that's never funny or believable, just stupid and so out of character that the only laughs come from Felicity Jones and her startled reactions. Jones was probably just wondering how her agent booked her into this holiday titanic.
Halfway through, I was trying to compare who's accent comes and goes more, Pfeiffer's Texas drawl, or Leary's full on Bwoston. Since he IS from Boston, I assume he was just letting it rip at varying degrees.
At one point early on, Claire is narrating our tale and talks about a lot of other Christmas movies.
For most of the second half, I was thinking about how much I'd rather be watching any one of those movies than this one.
Oh. What. Fun.
What. A. Mess.
It gets a D.
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