Christmas With The Campbells tells the story of Jesse who gets dumbed right before the holidays by her boyfriend Sean. However, his parents convince her to still spend Christmas with them while Sean is away. First of all the plot of this movie is basically your typical Hallmark Channel drama.
This holiday rom-com attempts to merge that kind of plot with something different by sprinkling some spice into the sugar-coated mixture like rebel humour f-bombs and some dick jokes.
Unfortunately, it fails to strike a successful balance as it oddly lacks fizzle and consists of a lot of naughty talks without really funny moments. Christmas With The Campbells is a soft and squishy Christmas romcom.
When it comes to trust, it’s so difficult to be edgy when it’s not. It frustrates me that it wants it both ways. However, its earnest commitment to its plot mechanics constantly battled with all the shenanigans, which made it unwatchable.
Christmas With The Campbells is not that funny as the script tries too desperately to generate laughter with awkward sexual humour that falls flat. The script suffers from Korean-induced dialogue and clunkiness with no surprises or love.
It’s obvious that everyone involved wanted to skewer this particular genre as a whole and craft a scathing parody but the result is too inconsistent and the execution is half-hearted.
Everything here needs to be cranked to 11 from plotting to characterizing to performing work. However, that’s not the case here. There are very few elements that hold the film together.
The setup in which Jesse has to spend time at Christmas with Sean’s family feels forced. This is especially true since Sean’s mother knows that they have broken up once she arrives in a small town in Idaho. The film Christmas With The Campbells becomes a contrived mess with annoying characters who are more caricatures than fully fleshed human beings.
It’s also really predictable that JC eventually falls in love with visiting Carson. This is due to the sudden reappearance of Sean throwing a wrench in Fate’s plans from the moment Jesse meets the charming nephew.
The ending seen can be seen from a mile away so it’s a long slog to get to that point. They don’t even bother to develop the relationship between Jesse and Sean before he dumps her out of the blue. The ensemble cast cannot save this movie. Britney Snow and Justin Long have very scant chemistry together which is more because of the lazy and shallow screenplay.
The usual nothingness of this genre is present here as well. Christmas With The Campbells presents a profoundly flat visual aesthetic while also being graciously overlaid. This attractive cast has never looked grimmer. Overall, it is not worth your time to watch this, so we do not recommend it.
- 5.4/10 at IMDb
- 41% at Rotten Tomatoes