| Kate (Alicia Silverstone) and Everett (Oliver Hudson) are getting divorced. Except it's going to be a friendly, amicable divorce; a "conscious uncoupling" even though all the townspeople make fun of them for using that phrase. They're still going to have Christmas together, a separation isn't going to change the fact that they're still a family (Kate has 'custody' of Everett's two dads). It's their last Christmas with their youngest son still at home before he goes off to college. | | 2025
Directed by: Steve Carr
Screenplay by: Holly Hester
Starring: Alicia Silverstone, Oliver Hudson
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The casting is a dream come true for those of us from Generation X - in addition to Silverstone and Hudson, Melissa Joan Hart shows up for some random one-liners in the background; and with the main characters all being in their late 40s, they have a ton of references and quirky jokes that should appeal to audiences of the same age, probably not so much to the younger generations. My favourite of which is why Everett calls the eco-friendly, environmentally-obsessed Kate 'Al' and in return Kate calls Everett 'Betty'. Their almost-adult-age kids think it makes no sense, but I got it right away before they even explained it. This film has quite a few jokes like that which will limit its audience.
For anybody close in age to Kate and Everett, this is going to be a reasonably funny rom-com with a ton of quirky humour with a few nostalgia kicks. For anybody else, I think the jokes are going to come across as stupid rather than funny. Which is also going to make it harder to get any of the emotional connection. When the movie is as predictable as this one is, the emotional connection is going to be limited anyways. So it all boils down to: is it funny enough and romantic enough? and thanks to the casting, the answer in both cases is going to depend on if you grew old watching Silverstone and Hudson in various comedies and romances.
Everett has a new girlfriend whom everybody except Kate knows about. And of course she makes Christmas awkward. Meanwhile, Kate kind of also has a new love interest. His name is Chet, and he talks and acts exactly as you would expect for a guy named Chet. Chet is also very hot (no offense, Oliver Hudson) and is actually funny as opposed to his counterpart on Everett's arm. Although neither Chet nor Tess are particularly well written and both just serve as a necessity of the plot.
The appeal to A Merry Little Ex-Mas is the maturity. Even when the characters are acting immature, there is still real thought and consideration behind where they are in life. A romantic comedy about Gen-Xers getting divorced. Sometimes the film works overboard into making everything fit into a neat and tidy formula, but there's also enough here to win over the right audience (ie, those of us who saw Clueless when it came out, lived through the 2000 election and Al Gore's environmental rebirth thereafter, and having watched Dawson's Creek and Rules of Engagement wouldn't hurt).
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