HIOH Reviews 2025: #1
Mistletoe Mixup
Synopsis: A workaholic with no time for romance, or the holidays, meets two potential suitors on the same day, who turn out to be brothers. A sibling squabble commences in this holiday romance.
Notes: Whatever else I have to say about this movie, this fact is always first and foremost in my mind: it brought me joy. It brought me more concentrated joy than any other film on this list - and that is what earns it its spot at the top of this list.
Female Lead: Holly
Male Leads: Tom, Austin
This Movie Contains: Romcom Trickster God; Extremely Accommodating Boss; Dead Parents
Peaks
There’s an illustrated opening credit sequence, and it’s very charming. So many of these movies feel like they’re barely doing more than the minimum to get just any sort of movie made, so it was nice to see a little touch of care for the production with that.
This is the movie on this list that most succeeds at being a comedy, and it isn’t afraid to break from the conventions of the subgenre to get a laugh. Our first scene finds our lead, Holly, waiting in line with her boss to take her children to visit Santa. Children in these movies are always not only incredibly well-dressed in their holiday best, but adorably well-behaved. Holly sighs wistfully over the children, professing her desire to have some of her own, and before I understood what kind of movie this was, I was already rolling my eyes, thinking it was going to be that unbearable kind of wholesome. But then we immediately cut to a shot of a pack of children screaming and kicking the crap out of Santa’s sled, followed by them cheering with wild glee when their mother threatened to leave them here forever.
It was this movie that also truly solidified my theory about the trickster god initiating all these plots. When Holly’s boss, Vicky, asks her what she wants for Christmas, Holly says she just wants to meet Mr. Right - but because she’s interrupted in the middle of saying it the first time, she says this wish again. Cut to - an ominously smirking line elf, who clearly instigates all the events in which Holly meets two men called Mr. Wright, and is also seen again smirking in the background when she is going ornament shopping with one of them!! The holiday movie universe is littered with figures like this, subtly manipulating the lives of lonely singles for their own entertainment, and this Magical Line Elf is one of the most dastardly of them all, giving Holly exactly what she asked for and then watching with unrestrained glee as it wreaks havoc on her life.
By giving Holly two viable love interests, this movie absolutely shatters the formulas followed by almost every single other movie on this list. Instead of watching two people we obviously know are going to get together, making excuses for why they obviously can’t, we have three people who are all in on the idea of a romance from the word go, and the point instead becomes figuring out who or if either of the brothers are right for Holly. Which, when I type it out, just sounds like I am giving them point for having A Plot, literally anything would be refreshing after watching the same thing happen in 20+ different shades of beige across the other movies.
Have you met Seth? My sweet, angel baby Seth? My absolute Christmas king Seth? In a genre so utterly saturated prince charmings and evil advisors, Seth is, just like the love triangle plot in this movie, an absolute unexpected breath of fresh air. Here are things you should know about Seth. He is the youngest Wright brother, but the only one with a functional relationship at the beginning of the movie. He’s a professional-level snowboarder. He chews licorice too loudly. He likes to join in on karaoke, even when its purpose is clearly for his brothers to attempt to woo their woman. You could pull him out of the movie and the plot would be exactly the same but my heart would not.
In another absolute bombshell of a performance, there’s also the brothers’ Grandma (played by the real life mother of the brothers who play these characters). Grandma is always caked in makeup and always looking for her next drink. She also has no problem regaling her grandsons and their dates with stories of how she was pursued by many, many men in her youth. I felt a little on edge when she began to dismiss the “entitlement” of the modern dating, worrying this was going to lead to some sort of anti-PC rant on her part, but at the heart of it, I think Grandma really just believes romance should involve at least a little bit of bloodsport, and she’s ready to release the lions. There is a scene where she makes her exit by mounting and riding off on a horse across a pitch black, mountainous winter night. This receives no commentary from any character. Grandma simply is.
The physical comedy in this movie is excellent. Romances tend to be so obsessed with keeping their leads looking desirable and competent, the most we usually get in this arena from is a character slipping on ice in a way that, at best, just isn’t actually that funny or, at worst, looks genuinely painful in a way that makes me cringe. Here, one brother tries to tackle the other and he winds up falling ass over tea kettle down a ski slope. Seth tries to join in with his brothers for karaoke and he gets bodily shoved back out of frame. No lead is exempt from the danger of having a Christmas tree dropped on their head. Again, it may all come across as a little goofy, but it was so unlike most everything I had come to expect from these movies it still had me laughing out loud.
Even as sort of generically nice as she is, I do like Holly as a lead for this particular plot. She’s not stringing along two guys without their knowledge, and she’s not so hopelessly in love with both of these men she’s known about the length of a single date that she’s so completely torn by her decision. Holly likes both of them just fine, but she is the first one to point out what a ridiculous decision this is and how she doesn’t want to come between family members. She also fully calls out Tom and Austin on their immaturity and how they’re fighting over her more like a toy than a person, and she isn’t afraid to walk away from both of them when the situation makes her uncomfortable. We love a woman with enough self-respect to walk away!
After the big blowout between Holly, Austin, and Tom, the movie actually gives them all the time and space they need to reflect on what they’ve been doing and what they want going forward, and those quiet moments of self-reflection, I found to be actually pretty compelling. Holly gets genuine guidance on what may be good for her life in terms of a partner. Tom admits that though he was glad to take on familial responsibilities once their father passed away, he’s always longed for the freedom he had as a kid, and Austin admits that even though his feelings for Holly as real, he truly admires Tom so much, he doesn’t want to do anything that would hurt him. They’re all surprisingly grounded emotional moments for a movie that ends with one brother jumping into frame, holding a glowing machine, and shouting, “I GOT KARAOKE!”
“Welcome to the Café Galleria. This will be your snowglobe.”
Pitfalls
The texts we see Holly sending and receiving over the opening sequence are written in a serif font. What kind of deranged individual texts in a serif font.
There is a photoshoot for a toddler in which, it feels like, we spend an undue amount of time just watching this curly haired tot bouncing around. It’s weirdly played straight compared to the rest of the movie, but given that we see (who I think is) the same child again in the sequel, I’m guessing this is the daughter of someone involved in the production who just wanted to get her an acting credit. Still doesn’t really add to the movie.
Can we talk about the unexamined romantic potential between Emily and her boss, Vicky? I know I yell at almost every single movie that they should be lesbians about it, but. Vicky took Holly with her to take her kids to meet Santa. She gave Holly her personal credit card to buy herself a Christmas tree. She lets Holly use her own private ski cabin so she can have the Christmas vacation of her dreams, going as far as to have it decorated to the nines and leaving her a a gorgeous robe and when Holly sees this, she cries into Vicky’s voicemail about how no one’s ever done anything this nice for her! Girl!! She said you could keep her kids and I don’t think she was joking, go get your sugar mommy!!
The only reason why there were any problems between Holly and Austin in the first place was because she had been attempting to text the phone number he gave her. And it turned out that was the number of his landline. Sir. Sir.
A major running thread is that after the brothers’ father died, eldest brother Tom solely took over the family business, leaving Austin and Seth free to remain uninvolved. Despite how much conflict this creates between Tom and Austin, and how many times the business is brought up, it is never once mentioned once what the business actually is. As such, I have created my own canon that they are a crime family, for which his new girlfriend’s bakery would actually make an amazing front, and that Seth has no idea this is how his family makes their money.
