Adam and Alison Watch Christmas Movies: CHRISTMAS ON THE FARM

 by Adam Thas & Alison Thas

It’s that time of year to curl up by the fire, grab some hot chocolate, and bask in made for TV holiday movies.  

Alison: To be fair, this one was my choice. When we first sat down to watch these, there were several choices and the blurb under the banner on Hulu made it sound interesting: “New York socialite returns to the farm she grew up on.” Sounded like everything I could have asked for; unfortunately, it did not deliver on much of anything I love in holiday movies.

Christmas on the Farm follows Poppy Montgomery (Emmy Jones), an author who returns to her farm in Australia right after her mother passes. I will spare you the long explanation of the why, but Poppy needs to save her recently deceased mother’s farm. Luckily, Poppy “ghost” wrote a book as her mother, which a publishing house wants to buy for a million dollars on one condition: the owners of the publishing house want to meet the writer at her farm in Australia during Christmas. Poppy has no choice but to pretend to be her mother in hopes of landing the million-dollar deal. She enlists the help of her gay cousin’s partner to play the part of her husband and a neighboring girl to be her daughter. As if that was not complicated enough, one of the owners of the publishing house is actually a man named Jack who Poppy had a one night stand with a few weeks ago. Naturally, Poppy cannot maintain the farce and it all comes crumbling down on – you guessed it – Christmas day.

I went into this film with high hopes based on the setting alone. The ridiculousness of the plot brought those hopes crashing down, and, to add insult to injury, there was almost nothing holiday themed to be found on the farm! The lights, decorations, and pageantry of Christmas – this is what keeps me coming back to these movies. Christmas on the Farm failed to cash in on what they had going for them with the rustic charm of a farm in Australia. I can’t fault them for not having any snow, seeing as it's summer in Australia during the Christmas holiday. Adam and I have watched holiday movies without snow before (Christmas on the Bayou) but those still managed to capture the spirit and ambience of the season. Instead, in Christmas on the Farm we get a ridiculous dress-shopping montage and bugs ruining an outdoor meal.

I did not like Christmas on the Farm. With most of these holiday movies, I will suspend belief (Hello, Princess Switch!) if it delivers on what I love in them. Sadly, Christmas on the Farm did not really deliver on anything.

Adam: I was really hoping for something good to start out this year’s batch of movies, but this one was rough. Like most of these holiday movies, they start out promising and then at some point completely fall apart. Let us start with the good. I enjoyed Nicholas Brown and Hugh Sheridan. They both play Poppy’s cousin and partner. They’re funny and had most of my favorite moments in the movie. Besides a few scenes, Christmas on the Farm may be the worst we have seen.

Nothing is earned in this movie. There is a moment towards the end of the movie where Poppy is riding on the back of a pick-up truck chasing after Jack. You think she is going to make a last minute pitch as to why she pulled the ruse she did and try to save the farm; instead, she screams, “I love you.” As a viewer when something like that happens in a movie, we should be excited that a tension we have felt is at the precipice of resolution. Instead it feels like Jack should drive away faster from this crazy person.

This is not the first of these movies that we’ve seen where someone pretends to be someone else, but this one just asks way too much of us a viewer to be even remotely consider this believable. I love sitcoms as much as the next person but this felt like a bad, overly stuffed sitcom complete with gags and awkward moments. The only difference is that when Chandler and Monica finally get together, we’ve seen them interact for multiple seasons. Here, two people fall in love while for 80% of the movie one thought the other was married.

There is very little to like in Christmas on the Farm. It was interesting that the movie was advertised right after Halloween this year on Hulu because the only way I could imagine anyone enjoying this movie is an eagerness to capture the nostalgia that holiday movies make them feel. There are plenty of holiday movies I would visit before this one.

Adam’s List:
1) Holidate (2020, Netflix)
2) Love Hard (2021, Netflix)
3) Holiday Calendar (2018, Netflix)
4) Snowed Inn (2017, Hallmark)
5) The Princess Switch (2018, Netflix)
6) The Knight Before Christmas (2019, Netflix)
7) Midnight at the Magnolia (2020, Netflix)
8) Christmas Under Wraps (2014, Hallmark)
9) The Princess Switch 2: Switched Again (2020, Netflix)
10) The Princess Switch 3: Romancing the Star (2021, Netflix)
11) One Royal Holiday (2020, Hallmark)
12) Christmas on the Farm (2022, Hulu)
13) Holiday in the Wild (2019, Netflix)
14) Pride, Prejudice, and Mistletoe (2018, Hallmark)

Alison’s List:
1) The Princess Switch (2018, Netflix)
2) Love Hard (2021, Netflix)
3) Holiday Calendar (2018, Netflix)
4) Holidate (2020, Netflix)
5) The Knight Before Christmas (2019, Netflix)
6) Midnight at the Magnolia (2020, Netflix)
7) Christmas Under Wraps (2014, Hallmark)
8) Pride, Prejudice, and Mistletoe (2018, Hallmark)
9) The Princess Switch 2: Switched Again (2020, Netflix)
10) Snowed Inn (2017, Hallmark)
11) The Princess Switch 3: Romancing the Star (2021, Netflix)
12) One Royal Holiday (2020, Hallmark)
13) Christmas on the Farm (2022, Hulu)
14) Holiday in the Wild (2019, Netflix)