Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Oh. What. Fun.’ on Amazon Prime Video, a cruddy Christmas comedy that Hangs Michelle Pfeiffer out to dry

Oh. What. Fun. (now streaming on Amazon Prime Video) is for all the put-upon moms out there who do all the work during Christmas. They bake cinnamon rolls, wrap presents, light candles, deck the halls, haul the decks, glaze the ham, arrange cookies just so in little tins, take out the trash, feed the ceremonial holiday chupacabra, lubricate the hydraulics on the cement mixer – whatever the tradition calls for, they do it. They all live in gigantic houses and look like Michelle Pfeiffer, too, with her hair in a loose side braid and a $229 Williams Sonoma apron around her waist. But this particular Xmas-movie mom has had enough of being underappreciated, and that’s why there’s a record-scratch FZWOOP sound about 80 seconds in. (You’ve been warned.) So: is Oh. What Fun. any actual fun? Well. About that. 

The Gist: Claire Clauster (Pfeiffer) has an ax to grind, and we can almost hear blade hitting stone as she narrates about how every Christmas movie is about men, men, men. In reality, it’s the women who are “the true heroes of the holidays,” she says. They do all the work while everyone else sips cocoa on the couch and steps on all the best lines in Christmas Vacation. I’d feel a little more sympathetic for Claire if she didn’t come right out and admit that she starts planning for Christmas on Jan. 1, which is rather OTT, right? But hahaha, this movie isn’t necessarily about how it might be OK if she’d just elect to do one or two less things every Christmas. I mean, maybe she’s doing some of this to herself, which is what the movie is sorta accidentally about sometimes? I mean, it’s not a big deal if the fam dropped the chupacabra ceremony from the Xmas tradition agenda – it’s always so long, drawn-out and messy, what with all the blood, you know? – so Mom can put her feet up for a stretch. She always insists on polishing the extra-fancy tridents first, and badger livers are so expensive now, what with the tariffs. Maybe we should just skip it this year. I’m sure Jesus won’t mind.

Wait, are we still talking about the FZWOOP movie? Yes of course! Claire is an empty-nester alongside hubby Nick (Denis Leary). While she does All The Things, he sits in the garage, putting together a dollhouse that seems to require an engineering degree he clearly doesn’t possess. It’s a gift for their twin grandkids, soon to visit with their mother, Channing (Felicity Jones), Claire and Nick’s oldest offspring, a.k.a. the responsible one, and her goofy hubby Doug (Jason Schwartzman). The middle kid is Taylor (Chloe Grace Moretz), who shows up every year with a different girlfriend, this time, Donna (Devery Jacobs), introduced as DJ Sweatpants, which is a Gen Z joke! Kids these days! They like bad music and wear sloppy clothes! Please laugh! The youngest is Sammy (Dominic Sessa, depressingly far from new holiday classic The Holdovers), a slacker-type fresh off a breakup with his girlfriend (Maude Apatow). Across the street lives Claire’s archrival in Xmas decor and celebration perfection, Jeanne (Joan Chen), whose daughter Lizzie (Havana Rose Liu) might have just thrown a lingering glance in Sammy’s general direction.

Like any good suburban White lady living in an adorable, spaciously sprawling home, and whose surely considerable income is never even hinted at (maybe she and Nick are retired?), Claire worships an Oprah-Martha-style morning talk show host that airs at a time accessible only to people who don’t work, Zazzy Tims (Eva Longoria), and good Christ on a cracker, there’s a ton of big names in this movie, isn’t there? I think that means the movie doesn’t suck 99 fruitcakes! All Claire wants is to enter a Zazzy-sponsored contest for the Best Christmas Mom Ever, but everyone in the family is just too self-involved to nominate her despite the fact that she does EVERYTHING for EVERYBODY ELSE. E.g., get tickets for the whole family to see a holiday dance extravaganza, and then gets left behind, and nobody notices until after the show starts. Whoops. And so, nearly halfway into the movie, the premise finally kicks in, and she snaps. By the way, the chupacabra thing is just a joke. Promise! I swear to god and the Holiest of Marys, and as always, hail St. Nick!

What Movies Will It Remind You Of? Oh. What. Fun. really wants to be a cross between home-for-the-holidays stuff like The Family Stone and looser, sillier flicks like classic Christmas Vacation or unclassic Christmas with the Kranks, with a nod to Home Alone. 

Performance Worth Watching: Watching Pfeiffer try to corral her hastily sketched character, who careens wildly between relatably sweet and borderline wacko, might be unintentionally funny if it wasn’t at the expense of a beloved longtime actor who’s won us over a dozen-plus times during her Hollywood career.

Memorable Dialogue: A fellow underappreciated mom commiserates with Claire: “My stocking looks like a limp penis. No love. It just hangs there.” 

A Holiday Tradition: Baked goods, prezzies, ugly sweaters, betinseled greenery, carols, stockings on fireplaces, lawn inflatables, deep-seated familial resentment boiling over into toxicity, Elf on a Shelf horrors – Christmas is fully intact here.

Does The Title Make Any Sense? It’s sarcasm, ya freakin’ moron. Especially when you take into account how much fun you’ll have while watching it.  

Our Take: Per Claire, the only three words a mom wants to hear at Christmastime are… “Can I help?” That’s the joke! That’s also the theme of Oh. What. Fun., the punctuation asserting the cynical snark silently simmering beneath all the overly forced, peppermint bark-fueled mirth, here exaggerated so it makes a bigger noise when the protagonist makes it all go kablooey. One can really sense Pfeiffer struggling to center her character, and filmmaker Michael Showalter (Wet Hot American Summer, The Big Sick) shows little interest in helping out his protagonist with tighter writing or specific direction, thus adding a layer of irony to this dumbass movie. Are we supposed to sympathize with her, or believe she’s gotten a bit too kooky about Christmas? Moms get no respect from their families, neighbors or film directors, it seems.

The movie proceeds with the consistently nagging sense that none of the star-riddled cast deserves a shoddy screenplay content to be a decoupage of cliches cribbed from too many of the movies it directly references (A Charlie Brown Christmas, A Christmas Story and several others get snippets of screentime here, a pinheaded miscalculation that inevitably leads to Oh. What. Fun. being the object of unfavorable comparisons). Showalter just doesn’t seem to care that much, his cast flailing for emotional handholds – especially Jones, who seems overwhelmed with the task of keeping this circus of nonsense grounded – and executing a tonally and thematically jumbled script, which might not be as objectionable if the jokes were funnier and the characters less canned. 

One set piece finds Claire shoplifting from a notable mall store that gets unofficial promotional consideration; another features Sessa’s pointedly dreary performance of ‘The 12 Days of Christmas.’ There’s a level of desperation to the comedy here that’s more depressing than joyful. Typically funny folks like Moretz and Schwartzman do little more than fart around, Danielle Brooks drops in for a cameo that no-so-subtly extolls the virtues of being a delivery driver (please note which streaming service is premiering this movie), and Chen’s character is one joke begging to be something more than a Stepfordish stereotype. Oh. What. Fun. is a dried-out festive cheese log of a movie and any attempt to appreciate its sad stabs at humor is to bust your cracker in it every stinking time. Throw it out in the yard for chupacabra bait.

Our Call: Oh. What. Fun. jingle smells. SKIP IT.

It’s the most wonderful time of the year! (At least, that’s what Andy Williams promised.) The holidays are a time to celebrate with family, friends, food, and, let’s not forget, fun things to watch. Whether you’re huddled up with the whole family in your living room or cozying up under the covers with your tablet, let Decider be your guide to all things festive this holiday season.

John Serba is a freelance film critic from Grand Rapids, Michigan. Werner Herzog hugged him once.