Well, waddaya know? Gay people celebrate Christmas, too. I’m not sure what else I’m suppose to take from this film, an amiable if tame tale of a protagonist in love with the guy we all knew he was in love with in the first place. It takes our hero about 90 minutes of screentime to catch up with the audience, but he gets there eventually.
Peter (Michael Urie) is a “social media strategist” from El Lay. I have no idea what that actually means, but when the film begins, Peter is working on a campaign of photographing hunky, gay Santas. Wow, this shoot is great! What are you selling again? Oh. You don’t know, either. Think that matters? Nah.
Having a long history of unsustained relationships, Peter is put off upon discovering his current flame is married -to a woman, no less- and has a home and children. This news has been reported by Peter’s handyman roommate, Nick (Philemon Chambers) , whom we all know is the person with Peter when this movie ends. But Peter has to figure that out.
Having promised his family a “surprise,” Peter brings Nick to Christmas in lieu of his now ex-boyfriend. And, wouldn’t you just know it? Anytown, New Hampshire just happens to contain the rugged-est, handsome-est, single-est, gay-est spinning instructor ever, James (Luke Macfarlane), and it just so happens
that mom has set up a Peter and James gay disciple get together. Well actually, she just set them up on a blind date, but what’s the dif?
Glory be! How will Peter and Nick ever get together if James is so perfect? And James is Christmas card perfect, as is the custom in Christmas movie dreck. Nobody ever seems to question why the handsome, young, successful, hunky, guy is single, do they? I’m sorry. It doesn’t make any sense. The film tries to explain that New Hamster has no gay people but, honey, I hate to break it to ya, there are gay people everywhere … even in New Hamster. You’d think that the gay person who wrote this would find a better out, huh?
Amiable-yet-tepid is the bottom line here. Yes, we’re overjoyed that there are weak gay Christmas films, too. Yay. What diversity. What inclusion. There are a few sweet and silly moments in Single All the Way; most include Jennifer Coolidge bullying the cast of a Christmas pageant she’s directing. I suppose I can recommend this if you like manufactured LGBTQ+ dreck more than CIS dreck, but I generally don’t recommend those films, either … and I’ve got a whole lot of blog to prove it.
There once was a guy named Peter
Whose love life would totter and teeter
Turns out, truth be told
‘Twas in his household
I swear he’d dis fate when he’d meet her
Rated TV-PG, 99 Minutes
Director: Michael Mayer – you’d think he’d be more into Halloween instead of Christmas, huh?
Writer: Chad Hodge
Genre: Tepid romance, gay edition
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: LGBTQ+
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Bigots
