The Perfect Holiday

Benjamin (Morris Chestnut) is an aspiring songwriter who attempts to break into the music business by giving a copy of his recording track of a Christmas album to a rap artist named J-Jizzy (Charles Q. Murphy). Nancy (Gabrielle Union) is a divorced mother, who is too busy taking care of her three children to take care of herself. Her daughter Emily overhears her mother say that she wished for a compliment from a man, and the daughter tells the local mall's Santa Claus about her mother's wish.

The Santa Claus turns out to be Benjamin, who notices Nancy. Later, while sitting in a Starbucks after his shift as Santa, Benjamin and his friend Jamal (Faizon Love) see Nancy go into a dry cleaners. Benjamin borrows Jamal's jacket, pretends to drop it off at the cleaners, tells Nancy that she's a very attractive woman (granting her wish), and leaves. Eventually, the two start to date and end up falling in love—without Ben realizing that Nancy's ex-husband is J-Jizzy.

Things take a turn for the worse, however, because Nancy's oldest son, John-John is jealous of Benjamin going out with his mother and plots to break up the relationship. What follows is a series of funny and touching scenes that show viewers what "family" is really about.

Our Two Cents:

Mostly this movie wasn't that great, but it wasn't that bad either. It had a lot of annoying things about it. #1 Queen Latifa's character. What the heck is point of her? Nothing against the actress, but we found her character confusing and distracting. Maybe we missed something that happened in the beginning. But it would have been better without whatever she was. #2 We didn't find the romance very believable. They seemed like they were too perfect and in love too suddenly, especially considering that she has 3 kids.

It has a few redeeming qualities to it. #1 J-Jizzy. So basically he and his manager: Hilarious. #2 The kids. Sometimes the kids can kill the movie, sometimes they make the movie. This one is definitely the latter. #3 The premise that he, as the mall Santa, approached Nancy to grant her daughter's wish... Adorable.

Ratings:
Storyline/Writing ★★★★★  •   Acting ★★★★★  •   Chemistry ★★★★★  •  Overall ★★★★★

Links: IMDB  •  Buy DVD on Amazon

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