"A Merry Little Ex-Mas" Delivers Cozy Predictability with a Smile

If you had told eighteen-year-old me that music video director Steve Carr, who has helmed videos for the likes of Dave Hollister, Def Squad, Jay-Z, and Slick Rick, would one day direct a Christmas movie, I would have thought you were joking.

However, after making a directing debut with “Next Friday” in 2000, Carr began to shift towards more family-friendly fare when it came to features. His latest film, “A Merry Little Ex-Mas,” brings him to Netflix for a collaboration with screenwriter Holly Hester.

Alicia Silverstone plays Kate, who once dreamed of being an architect before her husband Everett (Oliver Hudson) lured her back to their old hometown of Winterlight. (It sounds like the name of a Yankee Candle scent, but fine.) Two decades, two kids, and a bucket of compromise later, Kate’s fixing gutters, installing solar panels, and doing her own composting—because in 2025, the Christmas heroine must also save the planet. Now she and Everett are “consciously uncoupling,” which is Hollywood code for “still love each other but need a third act.”

In Winterlight, divorce is treated like forgetting the words to “Silent Night.” The townsfolk, armed with hot cocoa and unsolicited advice, can’t imagine a love story without mistletoe and reconciliation. Yet the script’s wink suggests the real moral: sometimes growing apart isn’t failure—it’s life. Silverstone gives the movie its pulse, grounding all that sugar in genuine warmth. She’s funny, maternal, a little weary—the kind of actress who can make “pass me the nutmeg” sound like a confession.

Hudson fares well as the husband who learns empathy the hard way, and Jameela Jamil turns the “other woman” into something resembling an adult, not a cartoon. Even the supporting players—two dads, a British boyfriend named Nigel still quoting Harry Potter like it’s a sacred text—add flavor to this overstuffed fruitcake.

A Merry Little Ex-Mas won’t change cinema. But it understands its own purpose—to soothe, not surprise. In a world that feels perpetually one headline away from collapse, there’s comfort in predictable snowfalls and cocoa with eighteen marshmallows. Call it sentimental, call it basic—but if it melts your cynicism for two hours, isn’t that the point?

Final Grade: C+

“A Merry Little Ex-Mas” is streaming now on Netflix.