From the moment it was announced that Lucy Hale and Ian Harding would be starring in a rom-com together, I was locked in. So long as they were both finally playing characters in their age group, the plot of the movie didn’t matter to me. And as someone who generally doesn’t like the whole “go on a bunch of bad dates until you find the one” trope, I was even ready to let that pass when news originally dropped that The 12 Dates of Christmas would be premiering sooner rather than later.
That said, it pains me to admit that nothing could’ve saved The 12 Dates of Christmas, not even Hale and Harding’s stunning chemistry. A large part of the problem is that the screenplay is weighed down by every stereotypical caricature of a bad date imaginable, and the other leading downfall is the decision to keep Christina and Peter apart for too long. There are hundreds of ways to draw out tension and build to a climactic happy ending, but none of that happens here. The writing is choppy, careless, and at times genuinely offensive.
In the year of our Lord 2026, there were a number of different ways to touch on how a language barrier could potentially get in the way of a couple, but a caricature of a foreigner in America being resorted to for comic relief is frankly appalling to see. Pair this detail with every “joke” teetering on the edge of being widely out of touch, and that, in and of itself, is a whole other article.
As someone who now rewatches The Ghosts of Christmas Always every year because Harding’s performance is so incredible, I was hoping that’d be the case here too. Because in every way that it matters, Hale and Harding save the story from ruin. Their chemistry still shimmers in every scene they share together, and their characters are mostly developed enough to make us care about them as a couple. The problem is we don’t get nearly enough while we focus on other nonsense.
The story wastes so much precious screen time keeping the two of them apart that the happily ever after doesn’t feel even a little earned. The idea of being left wanting more from a romantic comedy works to a degree, but when it feels like we’ve barely scratched the surface in developing the main couple, then that’s just wild. So few people would tune in to a movie like this without Lucy Hale and Ian Harding, so the idea of keeping them apart is also silly on so many levels.
In a nutshell, Hale and Harding, as well as their fans, deserve a better movie than this. They deserve a screenplay that plays to both their strengths as actors while understanding that sharing screen time actually matters when it comes to developing a rom-com. As cute as the ending was, it unfortunately doesn’t salvage any of the content that came before. I can handle meddling family members, bad dates, and a lot of nonsense, especially around the holidays, but the stars deserved so much better than this.
The 12 Dates of Christmas is now streaming on Hulu.
First Featured Image Credit: ©Hulu