OH. WHAT. FUN (AMAZON PRIME) (2025)

SYNOPSIS: Claire Clauster (Michelle Pfeiffer) is the glue that holds her chaotic, lovable family together every holiday season. From perfectly frosted cookies to meticulously wrapped gifts, no one decks the halls quite like Claire. But this year, as her grown kids and distracted husband get swept up in their own seasonal dramas, they make one crucial mistake: they forget their mom. By the time they realize she's missing, Claire’s already set off on a festive adventure of her own - one that doesn’t involve cooking, cleaning, or coordinating anyone else’s chaos. As her family scrambles to find her and salvage their Christmas, Claire rediscovers what the holidays mean when you’re finally free to put yourself first.

MOVIE REVIEW:

The anticipation is real especially after the prologue of Oh.What.Fun, which name-checks several classic Christmas movies but points out that none of those stories feature a woman, let alone a mother, as the lead. And honestly, women especially moms are usually the ones making the festive season as joyous as it is. So naturally, we thought this Michelle Pfeiffer–starrer would finally be that movie.

Pfeiffer plays Claire, a Texas mom who has spent weeks preparing the perfect Christmas dinner, only to feel completely unappreciated by her entire family: eldest daughter Channing (Felicity Jones), middle child Taylor (Chloë Grace Moretz), youngest son Sammy (Dominic Sessa), and her husband, Nick (Denis Leary). Claire’s biggest Christmas wish is for her children to nominate her for the “Best Holiday Mom” contest on Zazzy Tims’s (Eva Longoria) talk show but, unsurprisingly, none of them bother.

Feeling despondent and fed up, Claire sets off alone for Burbank to gate-crash Zazzy’s Holiday Mom Contest. And oh, what fun this is going to be, right? Right?

Alas… no. Not even close.

Ultimately, Oh.What.Fun is a misfire. It has no real understanding of how to pull off a chaotic Christmas misadventure, so the writer simply tosses in a handful of ridiculous gags to pad out the runtime. There’s no compelling reason for Claire to walk out of Crate & Barrel without paying and getting chased by mall cops isn’t inherently comedic. A half-baked rivalry with a neighbor (Joan Chen, in a welcome Hollywood return) over Christmas decorations also fails to spark any real cheer.

The casting is almost too stacked for a streaming film—Jason Schwartzman even pops up as Channing’s goody-two-shoes husband, Doug but no one is given anything meaningful to do. Jones has the meatiest role as the eldest daughter who’d rather be on a ski-resort retreat than at a family reunion. In what feels like an attempt at inclusivity, Moretz plays an LGBTQ character who changes girlfriends every Christmas; we’re not even sure if it’s meant to be funny or just vaguely snarky.

Pfeiffer, of course, delivers the dutiful-mother performance effortlessly. Unfortunately, the movie is stuffed with so many subplots that Claire is pushed to the sidelines by the end—ironically mirroring her character’s entire struggle. Sure, she gets her car towed and spends a night in a motel but if that’s supposed to count as a misadventure, it’s truly scraping the bottom of the barrel.

Not to be a grinch, but Oh.What.Fun is basically a slog. The characters are paper-thin, the humor barely exists and what was supposed to be a rowdy, star-studded Christmas romp ends up feeling like a flat sitcom episode. Yet the movie dares to compare itself to the classics. If only.

MOVIE RATING:

Review by Linus Tee