Title: I believe in Santa
Actors: Christina Moore, John Ducey, Violet Mcgraw
Director: Alex Ranarivelo
Writers: John Ducey
Genre: Comedy, Christmas
My Rating: 6.5/10
I believe in Santa
Lisa hates Christmas and Tom is the biggest fan of Christmas. On the fourth of July, they met at the fair and they fell in love immediately. Months later, it is almost Christmas when Lisa and her best friend Sharon get invited for dinner at Tom’s place. Tom redecorated his whole apartment for Christmas, but he went really out. He even has a talking Santa, trains and so much more. It is pretty overwhelming for Lisa and she can’t believe she fell for a guy who loves Christmas. But when she thinks it could not be worse, Tom says he believes in Santa. Lisa and Sharon think he is joking, but he is not. He actually believes in Santa. Will the relationship between the Grinch (Lisa) and the biggest Christmas fan (Tom) survive?
Review
Netflix has been releasing a lot of romantic Christmas movies. When I saw this on the ‘new and popular’ page of Netflix, I assumed this was going to be another Christmas romantic movie. But you should have seen my face when I was watching this movie. But it was definitely not what I was expecting.
Honestly, I am still confused about this movie. It was not the kind of romantic movie I was expecting. We all know the two famous movies ´The Grinch who stole Christmas´ and ´ELF´. Two amazing Christmas that I love to watch. Well, ´I Believe in Santa´ was a mix of both. Lisa was the Grinch because she does not really celebrate Christmas and never decorates for Christmas. Tom on the other hand reminded me of Buddy from the movie ELF. He believed in Santa, he goes crazy with the Christmas decorations and everything evolves around Christmas in December for him.
But it was the way how Tom acted he reminded me of the ELF. He had the same crazy energy as Will Ferrell. Although, nobody is as good as Will Ferrell. I think it was a tricky move to make a movie like this. Because we already have ´ELF´ and to be honest, this movie is not as good as that one. It felt a bit forced. I was missing the chemistry between Lisa and Tom, which is kind of unexpected since the two are married in real life. I hope they have more chemistry in their real relationship.
The storyline was a bit dull too. Lisa is supposed to ‘hate’ Christmas, but she seems to enjoy it on her first date with Tom. I was hoping she would be more like the Grinch. It was a bit too cringe to watch actually. Yes, Elf (the movie) is weird too but somehow it is not cringey to watch. I appreciate they took a risk to make a ‘different’ kind of romance movie about Christmas, but this is another no for me. I am kind of disappointed this year. I mean, ‘Falling for Christmas‘ and ‘The Noel Diary‘ were okay, but not great. In the past two years Netflix released at least one good Christmas movie I would actually enjoy and want to watch again. So far, there is no new Netflix Christmas movie that I would like to see again.
I hope next year, Netflix puts more effort into romance movie. 9 out of 10 look like they could be a Hallmark movie. I watch Hallmark romance movies sometimes and it is fine when you’re in that kind of mood you want to see a terrible/okayish Hallmark movie. But with the budgets Netflix has, I am expecting more. A lot more. I want to watch a romance movie with a good storyline, with a lot of chemistry between the main characters and a little bit of humor. Not these kind of movies like ‘I believe in Santa’. And for now, I am just looking forward to the remake of Matilda, which was my favourite movie as a kid.