Starring: Alicia Silverstone, Oliver Hudson, Melissa Joan Hart
A.K.A.: His Girl Friday gets the holiday rom-com treatment
What should you do when your ex gets a hot new girlfriend? Move on. What should you do when you ex gets a hot new girlfriend but you live in a rom-com fantasy land? Get a hot dumb boyfriend, of course!
This is, more or less, the plot of A Merry Little Ex-Mas, the 2025 Netflix Christmas movie about divorcees Kate (Alicia Silverstone) and Everett (Oliver Hudson), who apparently live inside a snow globe. Kate’s ambition was stifled when they moved into said snow globe (a fictional Vermont suburb called Winterlight) and she became their kids’ primary caregiver. Everett, meanwhile, worked long hours as the town’s sole doctor. They drifted apart and eventually made the decision to “consciously uncouple.”
Then, just before Christmas, Kate discovers Everett is dating the comically overachieving Tess (Jameela Jamil). Naturally, she decides she must also bring home a new partner for the holidays, and picks up the Christmas tree guy, Chet (Pierson Fodé). Hijinks ensue, etc.
Helmed by Silverstone as the eco-warrior handywoman Kate and Melissa Joan Hart as her pot-stirring bestie April, A Merry Little Ex-Mas is millennial bait that failed to keep this viewer on the hook. The film teeters between sickeningly sincere and absurd, without ever really finding its center. The one bright spot in Winterlight is Fodé, who deserves a lot more screen time than he gets as the jack-of-all trades Chet. He succeeds in a role that, in less capable hands, could seen as a throwaway. A chiseled man who puts out a Christmas tree fire with his stripper tuxedo? Let’s be so for real, that’s all we really want in a Christmas rom-com anyway.
