VH1 presents a new twist on some holiday favorites in Everything I didn’t want for Christmas. This Christmas comedy stars Gabourey Sidibe as a wannabe radio host and Kel Mitchell as an elf whose job it is to make people glow emotionally and spiritually. Does Everything I didn’t want for Christmas Are you giving viewers what they want? Or is this a movie you want to exchange for credit?
EVERYTHING I DID NOT WANT FOR CHRISTMAS: STREAM OR SKIP?
The essentials: Gabourey Sidibe plays Emily Harris, the producer of a popular radio show who dreams of being behind the mic. She also has the chance because her boss is retiring. All she has to do is pitch him at the network’s Christmas party and — oh wait. He’s already given Emily’s perfect cheeky rival the window of opportunity. Drunk and angry, Emily writes a sloppy, sarcastic wish list for Santa and deposits it in a children’s letters to Santa mailbox… and she actually ends up at the North Pole.
Then Emily’s fate is handed over to an elf named Wolf (Kel Mitchell), a reticent failure who has been given one last chance to form before being sent to work [gulp] the tooth fairy. His new job: guiding people in the Lost Souls department – and Emily is his first case.
Emily wakes up the next morning to a new world where all her wishes—yes, her drunken, scrawled wishes—have been granted. Now she has until Christmas to find out what she really wants – and not just for Christmas, but for her life.
Which movies will it remind you of?: The premise is like an intelligent mashup of It’s a beautiful life and A Christmas song (although the sound is much more caught).
Notable performance: It’s such a pleasure to have Kel Mitchell back on TV. He’s older, but not necessarily smarter – and that’s great. He still has that cool vibe and easygoing energy that made him such a dynamo Kenan & Kel and All that. Please let 2023 be the year of the Kel-aissance.
Memorable dialogue: Emily looks in her mirror and practices asking her boss about his time slot: “Ken, baby – listen, okay? I want to do that for you with my groundbreaking guide show Ask Emily. The ratings will go so high you’ll think you’re back on cocaine – but in a good way.”
Even when Emily is frustrated that Santa has granted all her wishes literally Rather than go by what she meant, Wolf replies, “Santa has classes this year — I know it’s super annoying.”
A holiday tradition: Emily’s mother Lorraine (Loretta Devine) enters a Christmas tree decorating contest every year and she will stop at nothing to win. nothing.
Two lovebirds: Trademark Spirit of Christmas always presents another twist on this classic vacation film format. There are also Spirited on Apple TV+ if you want your redemption of a wayward soul to include song and dance.
Does the title make sense?: Considering the film will premiere on VH1, a television network that helped make Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You” a seasonal staple when VH1 played music videos, I’ll say yes. I look forward to the call back.
Our opinion: Just when it feels like you’ve seen every twist of the classic “lost souls find their way this holiday season thanks to the help of an angel or genie or muppet or twinkling lights or crickets” genre, a movie like a movie Everything I didn’t want for Christmas come and call you out. This premise, Santa Claus fulfilling the insincere wishes scrawled by a depressed and hopeless drunk and leaving an elf to do the dirty work, feels different enough than all the other reality-distorting holiday movies and lets Everything I didn’t want for Christmas really asserting its own vibe.
And that vibe, y’all, is hilarious.
We absolutely don’t talk enough about Gabourey Sidibe’s work as a comedic actress, because she’s a stunner. This role really lets her do everything from the mild-mannered Mary Tyler Moore way, to letting go as the drunkest girl at the party, to being the sarcastic and villainous handful for the poor wolf. Everything she does in this film evokes emotion, be it genuine laughter or genuine compassion. Give Sidibe her own comedy series.
However, the real winning combination here has to be Sidibe and Loretta Devine. Just when you think so Everything I didn’t want for Christmas will be 90 minutes of disrespect and scorn (well-written disrespect and well-acted scorn, mind you), the film focuses on Emily and Lorraine’s relationship and just gets going – hard. These are real, sometimes painful, mother-daughter issues, the kind we rarely see in vacation movies because the mothers in vacation movies are usually dead. I’m really not joking. Serious.
The fact that Everything I didn’t want for Christmas actually getting into some real trouble that people really struggle with during the holidays is just the icing on this Christmas sundae (eggnog ice cream, red and green sprinkles?). Without the depth of surprise, this movie is still full of genuine laughs and a scene where Emily and her fruitcake feet are being chased by a stop motion monster.
This movie is wild and full of heart.
Our appeal: Stream it. Is it possible that VH1 will bring this to theaters so that Gabourey Sidibe can be nominated for another Oscar?
