Netflix’s Attempt at a Spicy Christmas Movie Is as Sweet as Ever

Netflix Hot cold was effectively marked as part of the opening salvo of a return to form for the streamer’s traditionally robust Christmas movie slate, as its 2023 holiday offerings plate was empty of big, high-concept releases. With the new film being followed by the Chad Michael Murray-led film The happiest gentlemenabout a young woman saving her family’s place by putting on a Christmas show with exotic dancers, has been the streamer’s unspoken promise that not only are the holidays on Netflix back, but they’re also racier than ever.

The opening scene of Hot cold promises that the film – which features Schitt’s Creek stars Dustin Milligan as a cute snowman who comes to life with a magical scarf put into it by Lacey Chabert’s café-owning widow, Kathy — will be different from the typical Christmas movie. In the sequence, a hat resembling the iconic Frosty blows at a snowman and then into the street, where he is promptly run over. “Take that, holiday cinema for the whole family!” seems to scream. Unfortunately, the following film doesn’t live up to the promise of the introduction.

Hot Frosty doesn’t use Lacey Chabert as an advantage

The Hallmark Star Delivers Another Standout Performance

Netflix’s Christmas movie has long tried to recreate the Hallmark movie formula, though those efforts have generally centered the streamer’s own holiday stars, like Vanessa Hudgens (the Princess Swap trilogy, The Knight Before Christmas) or Lindsay Lohan (Falling for Christmasthe next Our little secret). Bringing in Hallmark’s Queen of Christmas, Lacey Chabert, to star in her own release on the platform was a bold move, apparently intended to use the strange juxtaposition to emphasize how different Hot cold is what we would expect of the typical healthy fare aired on the cable network.

Unfortunately, Chabert isn’t asked to give anything beyond her typical Hallmark performance. She’s tremendously effective at conveying emotion and joy under typical Hallmark constraints, but the network’s truncated production schedules typically require her to play archetypes rather than layered characters. Prickly With a Heart of Gold is a perennial favorite, for example. Here, she takes advantage of the Mourning Widow and Pillar of the Community buckets, and while she does a good job, the character’s canned wholesomeness doesn’t elevate a film that’s in dire need of some grit and weight.

Hot Frosty is sweet but generic

The film only occasionally comes to life

The newest installment in Netflix’s holiday movie universe is, thankfully, but only slightly, driven by Dustin Milligan’s total commitment to his role like the doe-eyed snowman, Himbo Jack. He pulls off a series of comedic moments with aplomb, keeping the generic script from feeling too familiar. While the film doesn’t do enough to subvert the “Born Sexy Yesterday” trope other than gender-swap it, Milligan’s warm performance in his cold character does wonders to bring Jack to life. The film also shows spasms of life elsewhere.

For example, although Joe Lo Truglio and Craig Robinson are wasted as a pair of unfunny comedic cops, they both have an exemplary moment each. However, any enjoyment that can be had is hard-won, breaking through a calcified crust of insipid cinema. The cinematography drowns everything in a very sharp blue-gray digital glow, while the production design is listless at best and actively harmful at worst (The main street of a place where “everyone in town” appears to be a crowd of about 30 people has such an impersonally metropolitan look that it’s practically brutalist).

Above all, Hot cold does not fulfill its premise. Your title promises something raucous Magic Mike Good moment, but other than brief sequences of various townspeople looking at Jack, there’s no passion at the center of the film. It gets to the point that it doesn’t even seem like Kathy realizes that Jack is attractive. Instead of taking the streamer’s holiday content in a unique new direction, the film delivers a routine, cookie-cutter fish-out-of-water comedy that proves it’s actually is no different than any other high-concept Netflix romantic comedy.

Hot cold It’s now on Netflix. The film is 92 minutes long and is rated TV-PG for language.