Ollie is content with his life. He has a home and parents who love him—even if they’ve been arguing a lot lately. He gets to spend his free time playing Dragon Duels with his best friend, Trevor. And Christmas is right around the corner!
What more could a kid wish for?
Well … maybe a new Dragon Duels deck. That’s priority number one on his Christmas wish list. But it has to be the right deck—and Ollie is worried he may have asked for the wrong one. That would be terrible! He could be stuck playing the game with lady wizards. Trevor would never let him hear the end of it.
So, Ollie does a little pre-Christmas reconnaissance, finding the hidden stash of presents in his parents’ closet and confirming that they bought him the right deck of cards.
Phew. Crisis averted.
But that’s when he hears his parents, Oskar and Noreen, come into the room. He stays hidden, hoping to avoid getting in trouble for snooping. (I get it. My parents always told me that they’d return any presents I uncovered prior to Christmas morning.)
It works. His parents have no idea he’s there. So, they talk about something they have been keeping a secret from Ollie. Something they’re going to wait to tell him after Christmas. But it’s not about presents.
They’re getting a divorce.
Ollie is gobsmacked. All the sudden, his perfect little life is about to be torn asunder. He’ll have to move, splitting time between his parents. Who knows how often he’ll get to see Trevor. Worst of all, he may have to talk to—gulp!—“Dodo the Divorce Clown.”
With this distressing information and only a handful of days until Christmas, Ollie has a new priority on his wish list: to make sure his parents stay together. And he’s going to do whatever he can to make sure it comes true.
It’s a daunting task. Ollie will need help. So, he recruits a crack team consisting of Trevor (of course), romance-enthusiast Katie (who’s totally not Ollie’s girlfriend, you guys) and a talking Christmas tree (yes, really) to save his parents’ marriage.
Ollie’s actions throughout the film, though deceptive, are driven by his love for his family and desire for his parents to reconcile. And while Oskar and Noreen are often cold to each other, they clearly love their son.
Trevor and Katie are initially at odds, but they (along with Ollie) learn to work together.
When Ollie’s parents tell him that even though they’re getting divorced, they promise they’ll always love him, he responds with an astute question. “Didn’t you promise to always love each other?”
[Spoiler Warning] Ultimately, Oskar and Noreen decide to go to marriage counseling to try to work things out, and the film ends on a hopeful note.
Oskar remarks that their family is Christian. We see a crucifix hanging on a bedroom wall. Katie references a Bible camp that she and Ollie attended in the past. A “relationship testimony night” is mentioned, an event seemingly tied to a church.
A menorah sits in a family’s window. Someone talks about fate. To encourage a group of adults to argue, a girl brings up religion. We hear a rendition of “Silent Night.”
As mentioned in the introduction, Ollie and Trevor are obsessed with a competitive card game called Dragon Duels, which feels like a mix between Pokémon and Magic: The Gathering.
Ollie and the above-mentioned talking Christmas tree have a strange dynamic, to say the least. Though it’s played for laughs, much of what the Christmas tree says to the young boy is uncomfortably suggestive. For example, the tree tells Ollie, “Look as long as you like—there’s a whole lot of me to see.” When Ollie says he could look at the tree all night, it replies, “You know what momma likes to hear.”
Initially, Trevor is appalled that Ollie may be spending time with Katie. Trevor claims that once you have a girlfriend, all your time will be spent “shopping for bras.”
Both of Ollie’s parents have checked out of their marriage emotionally, and most of their interaction together involves them fighting. Ollie often lies to them as he tries to get them to fall in love again.
Noreen tells Oskar, “You think about everything, except how I feel.” Ollie’s parents tell him that they’ve made up their minds to get a divorce and that their relationship is over. In response, Ollie wants “a divorce” from them and runs away from home. (This is another ploy to get them back together.) When asked to give relationship advice, Oskar says, “Make sure you find the right person. When you’re right for each other, everything just works.” At that point in the film, it’s unclear whether he views Noreen as the “right person” for him.
Katie, for her part, agrees to help Ollie because she loves romantic stories. Her bedroom walls are covered with several Hallmark-like romcom posters. She assesses Oskar and Noreen’s failing marriage and says that at least there are “no outside players,” referring to affairs—a troubling thing to hear from a 10-year-old.
Ollie recounts that whenever Noreen’s parents would visit and stress her out, she and Oskar would disappear into the bedroom for a while and “come back smiling.” Ollie innocently replicates this situation in the hopes of improving his parents’ relationship, not understanding what exactly is happening.
As a result, Oskar and Noreen decide to have sex while they avoid her parents. Noreen is hesitant but Oskar tells her that their intimacy “wouldn’t have to mean anything.” They kiss passionately and fall onto the bed—with Ollie hiding underneath. (Fortunately, they don’t get far.)
Another of Ollie’s schemes involves some strategically placed mistletoe to help his parents rekindle their love. (Unfortunately, it becomes just another thing for them to fight about.)
Trevor acquires a “love potion popsicle” from a random teenager. The effectiveness of said popsicle is dubious, although later it seems to work for Ollie’s bickering grandparents.
Oskar tells his son that women tend to react strongly when you say, “I love you.” Katie announces that she and Ollie are “boyfriend, girlfriend.” She speaks longingly of a closeness she and Ollie shared once. Ollie gives Katie a peck on the cheek. Someone says, “A man ought to know how to kiss a woman.” A married couple kisses.
Any violence found in this film is pretty tame. Ollie’s parents yell and argue, but it never escalates beyond that. Katie slaps a pen out of Ollie’s hand and then throws a paper at him. Ollie notes that, in all the old, romantic tales that Katie recounts, there are only old widows, as all their “old husbands” are dead.
We hear three uses of “suck” or “sucks” and one “heck.” Several characters call each other “stupid” or “dumb.”
A briefly seen wall hanging plays on a vulgar phrase, substituting the f-word for “fox.”
Trevor tells Ollie about a kid whose parents got divorced who now spends all day “smoking cigarettes in a dumpster.” Adults have wine with a meal.
Ollie lies to Trevor when he recruits Katie to help him.
Noreen’s relationship with her parents is strained, and her mother is very critical. Her parents don’t seem to have a very good relationship with each other, either. Ollie’s grandfather tells him, “Don’t let [the woman] do all the talking. Once that starts, your life is over.”
A recurring reference is made to “Dodo the Divorce Clown,” a therapist who helps children process their parents’ divorce. However, the effectiveness of his methods is dubious at best and serves as a running gag.
To get a new Christmas tree (which ends up being of the talking variety), Ollie and Trevor dump an old Christmas tree into someone’s backyard. We’re told that Ollie’s grandmother on his father’s side frequently texts him, telling him not to “get vaccinated.”
Awesomest Christmas Ever aims to be a Christmas movie in the Hallmark vein. Fair enough. There’s plenty of demand for that heartwarming niche, which racks up nearly $350 million per year for Hallmark, according to Forbes.
But I felt that Awesomest Christmas Ever promised presents it didn’t deliver.
There’s a shortage of feel-good family magic here. Sure, the film is built around the importance of keeping a family together, which is great. But it gets too caught up in its own antics to get to the heart of that important message.
Finally, while not explicit, there is a surprising amount of suggestive content in what is ostensibly a family Christmas film. In the end, that may leave families feeling that this Christmas tale is not as awesome as advertised.
Bret loves a good story—be it a movie, show, or video game—and enjoys geeking out about things like plot and story structure. He has a blast reading and writing fiction and has penned several short stories and screenplays. He and his wife love to kayak the many beautiful Colorado lakes with their dog.
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