I tried to consistently use the wheel and let random chance pick all my movies, but I just wanted to watch this new Netflix original too much.
Natalie Bauer (Nina Dobrev) is an online journalist based in LA who specializes in documenting her “disaster dates” and sharing them with the world. Her boss Lee (Matty Finochio) wants her to stay focused on the disasters because that’s what the readers love. Her friend Kerry (Heather McMahan) wants her to branch out more, so Kerry changes Natalie’s range on the dating app Flirt Alert to the entire continental US. Pretty quickly Natalie matches with a guy from Lake Placid, NY. They hit it off, talking all the time, and Natalie wants to fly out to surprise him for Christmas. Lee demands an article about it.
🚩#1-Natalie arrives in Lake Placid, her luggage is gone, and there’s only one Uber driver in the town- Eric (Fletcher Donovan), who seems like an idiot. He gives her a joint to give to her guy because he and Eric used to smoke in the basement. 🚩#2-Natalie, having more balls than I will ever have in my life, knocked on the front door and introduced herself to his family as his girlfriend before he even got home. 🚩#3- his parents are way too excited that he has a girlfriend. Finally, Josh Lin (Jimmy O. Yang) comes in, but he is not the guy from the pictures on his profile. Natalie chooses not to embarrass him in front of his family, which I respect but I don’t understand. Then she slips away and ends up at a bar, where she spots the man from the pictures! He’s real! And his name is Tag (Darren Barnet), which is an unfortunate name.
Josh and Natalie come to an agreement that Josh will help Natalie get with Tag if Natalie pretends to be Josh’s girlfriend in front of his family through Christmas. There’s other cute tropes that I loved, like fighting over the best Christmas movie (in my opinion, they are both wrong), they go so hard on the caroling, and Lee, the douchebag boss who seems like a cynic, is actually the voice of reason when it counts. But if you like romcoms and/or Christmas, you’ll love this movie. I love both, so I’m giving it 5 stars.