Finally, queer horse girls have the holiday movie representation they deserve! Tello Films’ newest Christmas movie, A Holiday “I Do”, follows a divorced queer woman, Jane (Lindsay Hicks), whose holiday season is quickly falling apart.
Her ex-husband and best friend, Mark (Joe Piazza), is getting married right before Christmas, and the bride, Heather (India Chappell), is super insecure about Jane and Mark’s friendship. The ex-couple’s daughter, Lexi (Colette Hahn), ends up caught in the middle—particularly when Heather, Mark, and Lexi go to pick up Heather’s parents at the airport and get snowed in, which forces them to spend the night out of town.
Don’t worry, though: That’s the perfect setup for the movie’s main couple, Jane and Sue (Rivkah Reyes), to spend all kinds of time together making moon eyes and generally feeling big, gay feelings. You see, Sue is Heather’s wedding planner and Jane is Mark’s best woman, making her the next-best candidate to help Sue run errands like finalizing the floral arrangements and testing the catering menu (which definitely would have already happened at this point, but I digress). They go on a sleigh ride together and toboggan down a hill with Jane’s neighbors, whose involvement in the movie completely hinges upon making a little Christmas magic—I love them.
Anyway. During their night of wedding errands, Jane and Sue nearly kiss at a beautiful wedding venue—before everything falls apart. They do basically everything you’d expect from a romantic couple in a holiday movie, which is really all I want whenever I turn one on.
Meanwhile, Jane’s family horse farm, which she now runs in the absence of her late father, is at risk of being repossessed by the bank unless she and her mom (Jill Larson) find both a solution to their debt and a way to keep things running sustainably. I won’t spoil the ending for you, but if you assume Mark and Heather’s wedding has something to do with the farm … you might get to mark a square on your bingo card.
A Holiday “I Do” successfully combines some of the best tropes of “Hallmark Christmas movies,” which has become a genre unto itself as more companies have gotten in on the trend of producing holiday-specific romantic comedies every winter. In the last several years, this primarily heterosexual genre has slowly begun to feature more LGBTQ+ romances, which is wonderful. A Holiday “I Do” is a fun, seasonal watch with a sweet plot and great character resolution.
If you’re only interested in knowing what works about this movie, stop reading here. Holiday movies don’t have to be great or even good, and I totally get that—so if heavier critique isn’t for you, that’s cool! Watch this sapphic romcom and rejoice, especially if you, too, are a horse girl.
It’s worth noting here that Tello Films has a much smaller budget than Hallmark or Netflix, and yet the company is producing LGBTQ+ holiday content rather than leaning into more heterosexual romcoms, which we love! Also, 10 percent of the producers’ profits went to The Trevor Project, which is great to see.
However, I feel like it would be remiss not to mention that much of this movie just feels awkward, and not in a fun, quirky way. Long establishing shots of exteriors and interior walls (just walls) take up a fair amount of the runtime, and there’s very little music throughout the movie, which makes pauses feel especially excruciating. Reyes steals nearly all of her scenes unless she’s opposite Kayden Bryce, who plays Jane’s teenage neighbor and the key to saving the horse farm and the wedding, Noelle. Hicks has an unfortunate tendency to grimace even when she’s supposed to be happy, which starts in the opening scene—speed-dating at a lesbian bar—and does not stop until the final moments of the movie.
Furthermore, the banker handling the farm’s loan is a Black woman (Marsha Warfield) who’s weirdly vilified even though she’s clearly rooting for Jane’s family to keep their ancestral home. She’s the only Black person with dialogue in the movie, which makes this characterization feel especially pointed. Reyes, a queer, Filipinx-Jewish woman; one of Mark’s groomsmen; and stablehand Joseph (Rish Mitra) are the only other people of color in the movie. In this way, Tello is unfortunately following suit with casting choices for its new Christmas flick.
Last but not least, the big kiss between Jane and Sue is the last thing we see before the credits roll, and it’s way too short! These women have gone through a lot since their meet-cute and they deserve to make out about it to a sweet song while lights twinkle all around them. Just saying.
A Holiday “I Do” is available to rent or buy via Tello Films.
(featured image: Tello Films)
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