Yesterday, my family watched Oh. What. Fun., a new Christmas movie on Prime, together. It has a great cast, including Michelle Pfeiffer, Danielle Brooks, Dominic Sessa, Felicity Jones, Chloe Grace Moretz, Havana Rose Liu, and more.
My mom and I separately saw trailers for this movie and thought it would be a fun watch for us all as a family, so that’s usually a good sign. I definitely think the overall sentiment of the film was a good one. The “invisible” emotional load that many women, and especially mothers, take on to plan, curate, and execute meaningful experiences for those around them should always be talked about more, so I appreciated that part of the story. I will say most of the characters had both their own flaws and also redeeming qualities, but I felt the reconciliation with the Mom character and her eldest daughter was really impactful at the end, because they were able to recognize their similarities and how they had both learned to shoulder the load as a way to feel important and needed.
My two biggest issues were the husband and the middle daughter. The husband barely apologized at the end after spending 90% of the film just trying to build a complicated doll house, and he couldn’t keep it together for one second when his wife was gone. After 20 or whatever years of marriage, I would need to see some real, demonstrated change if I were Michelle Pfeiffer before I forgave him. And the middle daughter was simply an unredeemable character. She went through zero growth throughout the movie and was super mean to her nice (albeit it sort of awkward) brother in law for no justifiable reason. And then HE was supposed to apologize to her at the end? Didn’t like that part.
Overall, I think most of the message of the movie was good, and especially if you’re a mom trying to send your family subliminal messages through media telling the that they need to appreciate you more, this could be a winner for you, as long as they don’t inexplicably side with the middle daughter, who straight-up sucked.
Merry Christmas!
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Thanks for reading!
Holly
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