CHRISTMAS MOVIE REVIEW: Our Little Secret (2024)

If Nothing Else, Lindsay Lohan's Back Doing What She Does Best

PREMISE: A decade after breaking up, former lovers unknowingly reunite days before Christmas when their significant others turn out to be siblings and all end up under the same roof. Does chaos and hilarity ensue in this new Netflix offering? Well, kinda… Here’s my takes:

PROS: If she hadn’t already, Lindsay Lohan has re-established herself as a formidable rom-com lead actress, at least for me. For the second time in three years (also 2022’s Falling for Christmas) Lohan was really good in this type of leading role. Ian Harding (Logan) was charming as her counterpart and Kristen Chenoweth (Ericka) was pleasantly fun in a supporting role as the hard-to-please adversary for Avery . I thought the concept was relatively fresh by most modern day Christmas movies and while not likely it’s certainly possible over time (several years) to completely lose touch/interest with your ex and be clueless as to who they’re currently with, even if you both still live in the small(ish) town.

What minor expectations coming were definitely exceeded and again, it didn’t feel like a blatant rip off of something else I’ve already seen. When the clear cut goal was to be funny it was accomplished, there’s without question a few laugh out loud moments throughout.

Also, there’s no clear cut “villains” in “Our Little Secret” but plenty of flawed characters with shades of grey.

Lastly and as always, I’m a sucker if not demanding of a happy ending with any Christmas movie and this delivered the goods—leaving me with the good feels.

CONS: Plenty of plot holes throughout this story, some of which hard to grasp. For example, both Avery and Logan take what feels like a long ride with their current lover to stay the holidays at Cameron & Cassie’s parents house. I have to assume it’s in another town, otherwise why stay there for three or four nights? However, when Avery needs go to home it feels like she’s there in 10 minutes. I also thought the big dirty little secret(s) reveal during the Secret Santa gift exchange had way too many things going on at once, making it all convoluted.

Also, a big reason Avery’s sad at several points of the movie is because she misses her deceased mom. Understood, I’d be the same. For fuck’s sake though, if her recurring sadness over it are a focal part of her personality and motivation for several factors, it would’ve been nice to learn what actually happened to her. We never find out, thought it’s possible we did and I just wasn’t paying attention at the time.

Additionally, the awkward tenson between Avery and Ericka was one of the highlights of the movie but didn’t get nearly enough screentime to shine, besides after (sorry for the semi-spoiler) eats a shitload of cookies and has to deal with the consequences. By the way—who the fuck eats that many cookies in one sitting?!

As far as Logan, he certainly appeared to have his shit together after the Avery breakup at the beginning and it had me wondering what the hell he was doing with Cassie. Again, it’s not that Cassie’s a bad person, just felt like a pretty bad fit and I felt no chemistry.

Last thing for me is that it passed the “is this Christmasy enough” test, but barely. It stepped up it’s Christmas game just in the nick of time, because for large chunks of this flick I couldn’t tell if it was the third week of December or early March. In my world, the great holiday movies can’t be made if not built around Christmas itself and this came close to falling short.

CONCLUSION/GRADE: This is no classic by any means and honestly, Lohan’s “Falling For Christmas” in 2022 was more festive, romantic and certainly more heartfelt than this. This feels like the kind of movie you’ll watch once and not come back to in future years because it’s not nearly memorable enough. The ending while happy also kind of sucked and who ended up together beyond Avery & Logan was predictably stupid.

That said--- not going to completely hate on “Our Little Secret.” It’s well casted, especially with another winning performance from Lohan, character driven and in my opinion at least worth an hour and 40’ish minutes of your time. It could’ve been more than that if they let Lohan and Chenoweth shine together just a little more. Grade: B-