Becoming Santa: Those Aren't Festive Ribbons, They're Red Flags
One of the things I like most about Christmas rom-coms is that they cater shamelessly to the female gaze. All the women are stressed single ladies who just want to find the one, and all the guys are hunks with hearts of gold who behave honorably and commit willingly. Usually our heroine might act poorly through insecurity or fear or because she's protecting someone else. But every now and again, you get a female lead who is 100% the villain in her own story. Such is the case with the deranged Christmas rom-com Becoming Santa.
Holly (Laura Bell Bundy) is dating Connor (Jesse Hutch), a toy designer whose prototypes are so terrible that his boss cancelled the company Christmas party in disgust. Connor wants to propose, but first he wants to ask Holly's father for permission. Holly reluctantly offers to take him "up North" to visit her family, who are too busy to travel at Christmastime. When they arrive in the North, they're met by Holly's "uncle" Mario, who offers to drive them the rest of the way. Holly proceeds to drug Connor with her magic so he won't realize that they're actually headed to the North Pole.
When he awakes, dazed and freezing, he stumbles into the house to find Holly with her parents. "I'm Nick," her dad says. He's a big jolly man with a white beard. "And I'm the mother," his wife says, which is an extremely weird way to introduce yourself. We find out later that her name is Jessica, which I found hilarious. Anyway, this is the absolute last possible moment in which Holly could still reasonably be hiding two important facts: that her parents are actually Santa and Mrs. Claus, and that the man who marries Holly will become the new Santa.
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Instead, Holly lies to Connor over and over, waving away the fact that her parents own reindeer and Mario looks a lot like an elf. Even after Connor figures out the Santa part, she continues to lie to him and subject him to asinine Santa tests without explaining their purpose. She has magic! She has lived in the North Pole her whole life! She could help Connor figure out how to slide down the chimney! When Holly's douchey ex-boyfriend Jack Frost (Tony Cavalero) hits on her in front of Connor, she just sort of giggles and smiles instead of being like, yo, back off, weirdo. She could have been on Connor's side, but instead she just whines to her mother and chats with birds. Did I mention she can talk to animals and she could just ask the reindeer to be nice to Connor instead of subjecting him to the humiliation of crashing the sleigh?
Speaking of Jack Frost, this character is unhinged. He's supposed to be Holly's high school boyfriend who has been training to be Santa his whole life. However, he reads more like a lesbian neighbor who is also the head of the HOA. He even has the chunky highlights. At one point, he puts on Santa's jacket and whispers "you're on the naughty list, and you're on the naught list, and you've been very naughty too, oh yes." Someone is VERY into Santa roleplay.
I'm probably coming down hard on Holly because I love Connor so much. He's my favorite kind of guy: a big, optimistic doofus who never doubts his feelings, even though he probably should. Holly has absolutely no reason to lie to him--this is a man who would absolutely love to be Santa. He's a literal toymaker! Though, his toys are absolute garbage. He spends the whole movie carving a wooden dog on wheels that a child in 1925 would find dull. His coworker gets a bunch of praise for coming up with the idea for "hunky Santa," which honestly is a toy that I'm interested in. Connor's gonna make a great Santa, and honestly a better husband than Holly deserves.
I would be remiss if I didn't mention the person playing Santa. At first, I was really offended by the portrayal. His beard and mustache looked like a dollar store fake, and he was clearly a tall, thin man wearing a fat suit. Why give the Santa role to a tall skinny beardless man when there are many Santas who've spent their whole lives training for this? They've been drinking hot chocolate, they've been combing their beards, they've been practicing their belly laughs, and you're just gonna cast an amateur?
As we learned in My Secret Santa, Santas are supposed to have certain standards. But I also kept thinking I recognized him. Mrs. Claus (whose first name is apparently Jessica) is played by Meredith Baxter, the mom from Family Ties, an 80's sitcom that also gave us Michael J. Fox. Then, it finally clicked: Santa was Michael Gross, the dad from Family Ties! At first, this felt like an incredible revelation, but then I just got more confused. I'm all for bringing back a couple of beloved sitcom stars from my childhood, but, like, why shoehorn Michael Gross into this role? Poor guy probably spent four hours in hair and makeup every day and still looks terrible.
Just so we're clear, I loved this terrible movie. It's got magic and weird family dynamics and elf child labor, what's not to love? It was a very fun way to spend ninety minutes being really snarky. I recommend this for your Christmas movie binge, especially if you're old enough to feel weird that Steven and Elise Keaton are now old enough to be playing Santa and (ahem) Jessica Claus.