There’s a famous New York café called Serendipity 3 that serves a monstrously sugary dessert called a frozen hot chocolate. This similarly contradictory title hides an equally over-sweetened centre to Netflix’s latest piece of hunky Christmas junk. A snowman comes to life in a small town, warms the cockles of all who meet him and strikes up a non-steamy romance with a comely widow. This will only rise above your expectations if you keep them well below freezing.
Our big-hearted hero is Lacey Chabert’s Kathy, who owns a “kafe” (a Kardashians fan?) and is kind to everyone – even, it turns out, inanimate snow sculptures (snow that looks a lot like polystyrene), one of which she adorns with a red scarf that’s expressly been given to her. This regifting has the unexpected consequence of bringing the sculpture to six-packing life. The tall glass of vanilla ice goes by Jack and is played by Dustin Milligan, mugging furiously to ensure no-one will recognise him from Schitt’s Creek. After some mild streaking and clothes-theft that stops him looking like Mr Tumnus, he finds his way to Kathy, who soon realises his true nature.
The film’s saving grace, if it can be so called, comes via an overqualified supporting cast
Before you can say, “Is that a carrot in your pocket or are you just pleased to see me?”, he’s encouraging her to open her heart, doing topless DIY and winning over the entire town in a story more predictable than the sunrise. His origins are not explored at all; his snowy nature has zero impact on the plot except to imperil him near ovens. Chabert’s an old hand at these romances, doing as much as is needed and no more, while Milligan desperately squints and grins to convince us he was born yesterday. The film’s saving grace, if it can be so called, comes via an overqualified supporting cast, led by a mini-Brooklyn Nine-Nine reunion of Craig Robinson and Joe Lo Truglio as a hard-nosed sheriff and his lovelorn deputy, and Lauren Holly as an older flirt.
This is cynically greenlit, built on a cold-as-ice certainty that some people will watch any festive film with a silly enough premise in pursuit of some mindless seasonal cheer, but director Jerry Ciccoritti has tried his best to elevate it. He adds little nods to the giants of the genre – a snapping jewellery box à la Pretty Woman, for example – and builds to a familiar but still solid It’s A Wonderful Life-meets-Sleeping Beauty finale. It could have been worse, but chances are it will still leave you cold.