Stream It or Skip It: ‘Friends & Family Christmas’ on Hallmark, Where Fake Dating Leads to Something Special for Two Women During the Holidays

Hallmark is showing that it has some range with Friends & Family Christmas, a holiday romantic-comedy showcasing a queer love story between two women, and featuring LGBTQ+ talent both in front of and behind the camera. Starring the talented Humberly Gonzalez and Ali Liebert as leading ladies, this film goes all-in with showcasing the beauty of a romantic tale often underrepresented in popular culture. But does Friends & Family Christmas do well enough to inspire even more holiday rom-coms like it in the future? Keep reading for our verdict.

FRIENDS & FAMILY CHRISTMAS: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Daniella McCallan (Humberly Gonzalez) is a hard-working and creative young woman living in New York City, where she is a student of the Brooklyn Artist Lab with a focus on photography. Though her dad, Luke (Christopher Shyer), is a mathematics genius and her mom, Raquel (Gabriela Reynoso), is a renowned author, Daniella wants to forge her own path, and works her butt off to do so, even if it means staying in Brooklyn for the holidays. Not wanting to leave their daughter celebrating Christmas alone, Luke and Raquel surprise Daniella by turning up in the city out of the blue.

But Daniella’s stress about spending time with her family while also leading a hectic charity week for the Lab is at least somewhat abated by unexpected help from serious and driven corporate litigation lawyer Amelia Kasmerec (Ali Liebert). After being set up on a coffee date by their parents and not really hitting it off due to their seemingly opposite interests and lifestyles, they decide to become friends and help each other out by fake dating through December 24th in order to get through holiday events, traditions, and obligations. The only problem is when the fake dating brings them close enough for real feelings to develop and lines to blur, causing unforeseen challenges and questions that could change the course of their lives.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Friends & Family Christmas is kind of like a combination of 2020 romantic-comedy Holidate and 2021 Christmas rom-com Single All the Way.

Performance Worth Watching: While everyone in this movie delivers a pretty warm and winning performance, Humberly Gonzalez and Ali Liebert definitely stand out the most as our leading ladies Daniella and Amelia. Not only do they have great chemistry together, but they also serve up extremely charming and layered work as individual actresses, too, making it easy to feel invested in their stories and root for them from the start.

Memorable Dialogue: This exchange between Daniella’s parents: “It is awfully early for introductions to parents.” “Even for lesbians?” “Oh, yes.”

Honorable mention for Luke’s dad joke: “Listen, the best Christmas sweaters are made with?” “What?” “Fleece Navidad!”

A Holiday Tradition: Since Daniella can’t make it home for Christmas this year, her parents come to her in New York City, where they engage in multiple different holiday activities both traditional and new, including Christmas tree shopping, a lantern lighting celebration, and a Christmas silent auction.

Does the Title Make Any Sense?: Sure does! Not just because the final Christmas dinner kicks off with the toast, “to friends and family!” but also because it revolves around the importance of making time for your friends and family during the holidays, and how friends can become family. Aw.

Our Take: Friends & Family Christmas is a very cute movie with lots of charm, heart, and genuine laughs. I found Daniella and Amelia’s budding love story believable, natural, and very sweet. The fake dating trope is such a classic, too, as is “friends to lovers”. With the latter in mind, in particular, this movie really nails the giddiness and fears of transitioning from friends into something more. And beyond all of the delectable tropey goodness done right with the main romance between Daniella and Amelia, this title is also very much about, well, like the title says, friends and family, making this truly a viewing experience for everyone.

Thanks to its solid writing, well-rounded characters, and overall strong performances, Friends & Family Christmas is just a great holiday rom-com, made even better by its inclusivity in terms of lesbian love stories feeling commonplace, celebrated, and accepted. This was really well done and something that will make a lot of viewers who may have previously felt underrepresented by the holiday film genre feel seen, and I can only hope that we’ll see more movies like this in the years to come.

Our Call: STREAM IT! Friends & Family Christmas has an abundance of heart, and it just might manage to steal yours this holiday season, too!