“Who sends Christmas letters anymore?”

Best. Christmas. Ever! opens with the cantankerous Charlotte (Heather Graham) breaking the fourth wall and talking directly to audience members, complaining about her old – and far more successful friend Jackie’s (Brandy Norwood) – annual Christmas letter while standing outside her little apartment. Normally when a movie introduces this storytelling device, it becomes part of the film and is used throughout to varying degrees, but that’s not the case here, and I think it’s because the whole endeavor is so uniquely inept. I hated this movie from start to finish, and it’s by far the worst holiday film I’ve seen in years. Whatever the amount of money spent to bring this disaster to fruition was shamefully wasted.

Charlotte is incredibly jealous of Jackie. Of her travels, her success, her hot husband Valentino (Matt Cedeño) and the life she’s built and shown off in her annual letter. So it’s comical how Charlotte must force smiles when her family arrives at Jackie’s doorstep, thanks to her son Grant (Wyatt Hunt) punching in the address from the newsletter. Jackie embraces her old friend with open arms while Charlotte squeals around in discomfort, and shuns her husband Rob’s (Jason Biggs) idea of spending the holiday snowed in their sprawling home despite the fact they have nowhere better to go. Best. Christmas. Ever! could have been decent had it given life to the home, but instead it’s just a vast and empty backdrop for nosy nothingness. It looks like an Atlanta mansion, and I imagine it was shot there for tax credits too.

Valentino produces a Christmas play. Rob sings a song with Jackie in the town square, rekindling their old days performing together. Jackie’s brilliant daughter Beatrix (Madison Skye Validum) helps Charlotte negotiate a lower interest rate with the bank on Rob’s dream home. And, of course, she loses her job hours later. Thankfully she’s an inventor and came up with snacking gloves that deters crumbs, which Jackie is convinced she can market towards sports teams. If all of that wasn’t absurd enough, the film closes with what’s meant to be a heartfelt tribute, coming from a solar powered hot air balloon that somehow hooks a sleigh & some reindeer, making believers out of the young skeptics below. And yes, I promise I’m talking about the same movie. It’s that incredulous.

Strangely, the movie decides to implement a “Countdown to Christmas” about a third of the way through as the small town play gets going, and I don’t remember ever seeing the visual cue more than once. Much like the open, the movie seems to just make things up as it goes, and none of the storytelling devices – however lame they might be – are ever fully realized or consistent. It doesn’t help that none of these people feel real, or that they say “splendiferous” like it’s common vernacular. Best. Christmas. Ever! is the equivalent of a stock photo in a store bought picture frame. Cheaply made, overpriced, and detached from reality. At least Hallmark holiday films know their place in line. I cannot believe someone was paid for writing this so-called script.

“It’s the most absurd thing ever.”

Rating: 1 out of 5