Ask ChatGPT to generate a summary for a Hallmark Christmas movie and it’ll probably give you something pretty close to “EXmas” (I did, and it did). Overworked Big Tech employee travels from Los Angeles to his childhood home in Minnesota where he runs into his ex-fiancee. At first they each try to sabotage the other’s Christmas celebration, but by Christmas morning he realizes family is more important than his job and they fall back in love.
Look, it’s not a spoiler if every plot is exactly the same. It’s not even the only “EXmas” on IMDb. (For the record, I’m reviewing the one released in 2023.)
“EXmas” accomplishes all the traditional Hallmark-esque tropes: Gay sister, ethnically ambiguous and woke-college-student brother in an all-white family and overly-excited parents whose entire personalities are hockey and Christmas.
In all fairness, they execute the tropes well. The production quality is solid, from music to costuming to casting. The plot, while generic, was well-written enough, and very economical — there were few wasted moments that didn’t serve a larger purpose in the narrative. I even sort of like the fact that the female protagonist’s bangs were never perfectly fixed. They didn’t look great, but it added to the authenticity of it.
What I appreciate the most about “EXmas,” however, are the few, small ways in which they stretch or rework the status quo. There were a few times while watching when I thought to myself, “ooh, I’m surprised they went there.” For example, when they accidentally bake THC butter into the Christmas cookies and the whole family gets stoned at the dinner table. It’s not a big deal, but just a slightly braver choice than you usually expect from such a movie. Near the end of the film, one of the characters suffers a pretty severe medical emergency which serves to bring the love interests together and teach them that life is fleeting, yada, yada, yada. Again, kudos for making that choice. There’s even a moment where the male protagonist nearly joins a throuple… Absolutely wild choice, but hats off to the writers for having the snowballs to add it.
The biggest example of this movie going the extra mile comes at the very end, right before the credits roll. I won’t give away any more on the off chance you want to add this slightly-better-than-mediocre move to your rotation this Christmas season.
If you do, be prepared to smile, laugh a little bit and probably roll your eyes quite a bit. It’s not worth a watch if you don’t like Hallmark movies to begin with, but if you do, “EXmas” is a good new twist on an old classic.