Early on in Oh. What. Enjoyable., Michelle Pfeiffer’s Claire Clauster factors out that almost all Christmas films are about males, significantly fathers, whereas girls/mothers are relegated to restricted display screen time at the same time as they work laborious to provide their households some Christmas magic. With restricted success, Oh. What. Enjoyable. makes an attempt to re-balance the scales by providing the story of a mom’s hijinks over the vacation season.
Oh. What. Enjoyable. comes from director Michael Showalter, who’s made a profession on movies like The Concept of You, The Eyes of Tammy Faye and The Massive Sick, all of which try to faucet into actual human emotion whereas injecting levity into typically critical, typically ridiculous conditions. Showalter co-wrote the script with Chandler Baker, an writer whose books have been spotlighted in Reese Witherspoon and Good Morning America‘s e book golf equipment, and which make her an authority on the experiences of moms throughout the holidays.
Nevertheless, Oh. What. Enjoyable. squanders any type of goodwill it earns in Pfeiffer’s harangue about Christmas films by delivering a movie that not solely fails to dwell as much as its distinctive premise, however tells a narrative about unlikable people who find themselves largely depressing by their very own making. It is a mediocre Christmas film which will enchantment to a choose viewers, however falls wanting being a rousing, mom-centric crowd-pleaser.
Oh. What. Enjoyable. Tries And Fails To Supply A New Form Of Christmas Film
Maybe the largest downside of Oh. What. Enjoyable. is that there is an excessive amount of happening. Whereas the principle plot of the movie is about Pfeiffer’s Claire going to nice lengths to plan an exquisite vacation for her household, there’s additionally a performative feud together with her neighbor Jeanne Wang-Wasserman (Joan Chen), an obsession with speak present host Zazzy Tims (Eva Longoria), and a short-lived kinship with supply driver Morgan (Danielle Brooks).
Past Claire, there are subplots with various levels of success. Claire’s husband Nick (Denis Leary) struggles to construct a toy dream home to humorous impact, and her youngest, Sammy (Dominic Sessa), offers with a latest breakup in enjoyable trend. Nevertheless, there is a surprisingly imply dynamic between center youngster Taylor (Chloë Grace Moretz) and the eldest Clauster kid’s husband Doug (Jason Schwartzman) that’s resolved shortly with clichéd platitudes.
The largest misstep of Oh. What. Enjoyable. is what’s presumably meant to be the emotional coronary heart of the movie, which is Claire’s relationship together with her eldest daughter Channing (Felicity Jones). This dynamic has probably the most display screen time dedicated to it, but it surely’s so underdeveloped that it is simply resolved in a handful of therapy-speak traces that do not even make sense for the characters. The film’s runtime is so cut up that it might probably’t be bothered to really unpack their relationship, leaving Oh. What. Enjoyable. feeling emotionally hole.
The place Oh. What. Enjoyable. often shines is in a few of its oddball humor, whether or not that is a scene the place a frazzled Claire dances on Zazzy Tims’ present or when she finally ends up bonding with a gaggle of ladies over the immense strain moms face throughout Christmas. There is definitely some laughs available, although not as many because the filmmakers doubtless meant.
All instructed, Oh. What. Enjoyable. would not reach delivering the type of vacation film it guarantees throughout Pfeiffer’s introduction. Or, at the very least, it delivers it far too late. The type of performative, superficial household portrayed within the movie is a trademark of Christmas films of previous, but it surely would not ring true in right now’s day and age, even with makes an attempt to modernize the household by way of the token homosexual daughter.
Additional, the trite message of the film — summed up within the line “Household forgives, it doesn’t matter what” — appears more likely to trigger extra hurt than assist for a lot of viewers members. In an period the place generations are trying to interrupt the cycles of poisonous or unhealthy habits upheld by their households, Oh. What. Enjoyable. lags behind. It makes an attempt to modernize the standard Christmas film, and as a substitute simply affords extra of the identical.
Oh. What. Enjoyable. may’ve been an incisive and compelling examination of a mom’s function in Christmas, but it surely’s little greater than a mean-spirited, hardly ever comic story a couple of household that by no means actually comes collectively for the vacations. Showalter and Baker might have got down to give a mom an opportunity to be the lovable, hapless hero of a vacation film, but it surely’s solely moms like Claire Clauster who will get pleasure from Oh. What. Enjoyable.
- Launch Date
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December 2, 2025
- Director
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Michael Showalter
- Writers
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Chandler Baker, Michael Showalter
- Producers
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Jane Rosenthal, Kate Churchill, Jordana Mollick, Michael Showalter, Berry Welsh
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Michelle Pfeiffer
Claire Clauster
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