The curse of auburn-haired American women heading to Ireland for terrible magic-themed romcoms continues, 14 years after Amy Adams took an unfortunate vacation in the detestable Leap Year (a film that even her co-star Matthew Goode generously referred to as “turgid” within weeks of its release). There’s less at stake here – Adams was a two-time Oscar nominee leading her first romantic comedy – but we’re left in a similarly unremarkable place, a persuasive tourism ad masquerading as a real movie.
That might have sounded like a big enough get for star Lindsay Lohan a few years ago, when she was still trying to break her way out of Hollywood jail. A mixture of bad film choices, bad life decisions and bad behaviour left her an uninsurable pariah, even if she had also been the victim of an industry that made it almost impossible for her to emerge from her teenage years unscathed. But 2022 allowed her a foot back in the door, thanks to Netflix’s nostalgia lust with the junky festive romcom Falling for Christmas. It was as disposable as the streamer’s many, many, many other seasonal offerings but it was a major win for Lohan, her first lead in almost a decade and reportedly the most watched new Christmas movie that year.
