My professional opinion? Netflix’s teen Christmas movie Let It Snow fails in every Christmas movie category.

Probably. I haven’t broken it down yet, but that’s what this blog post is for. As with our previous 12 Days of Christmas Movies blog post, I will be breaking down this movie’s success as a Christmas movie based on 5 categories: Romance, Morality, Music, Christmas Spirit, and Heart. It’s the five Planeteers of Christmas movies. With their powers combined, they might make a decent Christmas movie. Did it work out here? Nah. Obviously not.

I’m not going to lie and say this movie showed a lot of promise. It showed… some promise. Obviously, this movie countdown series now canonically has a thing for Kiernan Shipka movies. So she was a draw. Additionally, we have Shameik Moore (you know, the good Spider-Man), Isabela Merced (Dora the Explorer herself), and of course… Joan Cusack? What are you doing here? This movie is based on a young adult novel co-written by John Green, Maureen Johnson, and Lauren Myracle. After reading a quick synopsis of this book, it sounds equally dumb, but also, this movie took a lot of liberties.

There’s no way to even break down the plot of this movie because it has no plot. Basically, Let It Snow wants to be a teen Love, Actually, but Love, Actually is an overrated Christmas movie as well. So we’re left with this mess. I guess let’s break it down.

Romance: 5/10. There is a lot of “romance” in this movie. Very little of it works. Honestly, five out of ten points here is very generous, but I’m awarding this movie five points out of sheer volume of romance rather than quality. Everywhere you look, young people are falling in love.

The most successful love story is probably the one between Julie (Merced) and Stuart (Moore), simply because these characters and their romance are the most developed. Julie has recently been accepted into Columbia for college, but she’s unsure if she will go because her mother is sick with some unnamed disease. Stuart is a pop star with a pretty bland Christmas song that plays throughout the movie. They end up on the same train that gets stopped because of the snow. And then they end up walking together which turns into spending the day together. There are moments of cuteness (like the sled scene pictured above) that almost makes this movie watchable. I also just want the best for Shameik Moore at all times.

Unfortunately, the least successful love story involves our girl Kiernan, who plays the Duke (yes, that is what she’s called… WTF kind of John Green tomfoolery is this). The Duke and Tobin (Mitchell Hope) have been besties for years, and Tobin wants to finally profess his love to her. The only problem is other people keep getting in the way, I guess. There’s very little suspense here. You know they’re going to hook up. In the end, Tobin offers up the most bland romantic lines ever and they make out on a rooftop of a Waffle House-style restaurant. I wanted to die.

Morality: 1/10. I’m not really sure what the moral of this story is. Uh… let me think. I guess, like, it’s okay to steal a very small keg from someone else’s party if you’re the hero of the story? Or maybe something about seizing opportunities when they arise? I really have no idea what this movie was trying to say. It was kind of a big mess, and I have a lot of questions. We’ll get to that though.

Music: 4/10. Well. I guess there were some Christmas songs here, and this movie did make an effort to have a soundtrack, so I can’t entirely fault it for it just not being music that was to my taste, can I? Kiernan Shipka and her dude sing some sort of song I’m probably supposed to recognize, but I just did a quick Google and couldn’t figure it out. And I hated it anyway, so I’m just not willing to put that effort in. I do have to give props to singing a song at a piano in a church. That seems pretty Christmassy, right? As I mentioned earlier, Shameik Moore also has a Christmas song in this movie. It’s pretty unremarkable, but if you want to give it a listen, go for it.

Christmas Spirit: 2/10. Aside from the smattering of Christmas lights and the snow, how was this a Christmas movie? This could have gone down on any holiday. And seriously, I’m thinking they should have just made this a New Year’s Eve movie, because a lot of this would have made more sense. Who is out partying with their friends on Christmas Eve? My mom would guilt trip me for the rest of eternity if I ditched my family on Christmas to go party at a Waffle House-like restaurant.

Warmth: 5/10. This movie really was trying for warmth. There was some family stuff with Julie’s family that was kind of sweet. But the rest of these friendships seemed hollow, and it’s Christmas Eve and these kids are just running around town. WHERE ARE THEIR PARENTS? I am too old for this movie. Anyway, I’m throwing a couple of points this movie’s way because there was a pig in it. This is my rating system, so that’s my prerogative. If you don’t like it, go make up your own system.

And because this movie defies all Christmas expectations in the worst of ways, I’m left with a lot of questions that don’t really fit into any categories here. For one, as much as I loved the pig, what was the deal with the pig? I’m assuming it was a nod to something in the book, but I didn’t get it in the context of the movie. For two, why was Julie so mean to Stuart when they first met? I know she’s a jaded teen girl who doesn’t care about anything and he’s a pop singer, but like, she was kind of mean.

ALSO! And this is really important. How did they expect to keep a whole party going off of that really tiny keg? Is everyone just getting a small sip of beer?

Most importantly, though… I have so many questions about Joan Cusack.

Joan is a tinfoil-wearing tow truck driver. And she’s also the narrator of the story? Why is she the narrator of the story? Truly no one knows. Why is she wearing tinfoil all over her body? No one knows that either. Why on earth is Joan Cusack in this movie? I get that she did it for the paycheck, but I mean for storytelling purposes within the movie, why was this happening? At the end of the movie, it almost seems like she might explain the tinfoil but then… nope. It’s just this weird thing that happened to me. I’m now stuck wondering about this for the rest of my life. That’s what this movie did to me.

I guess let’s just score this bad boy.

17/50 = 34%/F-. This movie failed so hard it gets an F minus. Nope, nope, nope.

If you feel like watching it anyway, Let It Snow is available on Netflix now. But so is Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse. Just saying.