Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Holiday Crashers’ on Hallmark Channel, A Mistaken-Identity Rom-Com That Elevates The Hallmark Movie Canon

In Hallmark’s new Countdown to Christmas rom-com Holiday Crashers, two best friends with nothing better to do decide to start crashing the local holiday parties in their town. When one of the women falls for a well-to-do party guest and has to keep up the ruse that she’s a lawyer to keep him interested, things get complicated. Fortunately, the film is light on farce and heavy on charm, and everyone comes out filled with the holiday spirit.

Opening Shot: One by one, holiday party invitations fall into a pile.

The Gist: Bri (Daniella Monet) and Toni (Lyndsy Fonseca) are best friends in their 20s who work together at a stationary shop. It’s the holidays so business is bustling, with all the fancy locals in their town printing off bespoke invitations to their Christmas parties and such. For Toni, this was supposed to be a temporary gig – she graduated law school a year ago, but has deferred her plans to be a lawyer while she figures out her life because she had a panic attack while taking the bar exam. That’s disappointing for her dad, Lou, who’s one of those local lawyers with his face plastered on billboards and signs all over town. Lou has been begging Toni to help him on a class action lawsuit he’s planning against Skyline Motors, a company responsible for installing faulty seat belts in the cars they make, but after her panic attack, she’s not sure if she even wants to be a lawyer.

Of the two women, Bri is the loose cannon, the one who asks forgiveness and not permission, while Toni is the one with her feet on solid ground, but she occasionally lets Bri get her into trouble. Bri decides it might be fun to steal one of the party invites their shop prints and actually go, uninvited. Just for fun! A lark! Fake it till you make it!

They show up to a fancy fundraiser and assume fake identities, Toni is now Annie, a doula, and Bri is Becky, a financial analyst. Toni/Annie meets Justin (Chris McNally) and hits it off, but she realizes it can’t go anywhere since she’s created this fake identity for herself. So she and Bri just lean into having fun instead. Cue the montage of the duo attending ALL the parties in town for days on end, before showing up to one at a fancy country club. While there, Toni sees someone she actually knows, a former law school classmate named Latisha. Latisha introduces Toni to her boss and you guessed it, the boss is Justin. Justin is all, “Hey, you’re Annie the doula!” but Toni is forced to come clean and explain that she’s actually Antonia. Latisha, assuming Toni passed the bar since she was a stellar student, incorrectly tells Justin that Toni is a great lawyer, and eventually they begin discussing Skyline Motors, which Justin’s company plans to buy. Toni reveals that they’re being sued over faulty seat belts, and Justin offers to hire Toni to work for him to help with the acquisition as a consulting lawyer. Toni doesn’t know how to tell him she’s not actually a lawyer, and when he invites both her and Bri to a work retreat at his lodge in Vermont, she doesn’t want to say no, so she keeps the ruse going. It’s the ultimate party crash, but Toni is uneasy because even though she knows what she’s talking about thanks to her dad, she’s not actually a lawyer herself.

Sparks start to fly between Justin and Toni, while Justin’s assistant Sebastian becomes suspicious that Toni isn’t the lawyer she claims to be. (Sparks also fly between Bri and the head of valet, Vinny, a delightfully fun sub-plot that owes a lot to the chemistry between Danielle Monet and Jag Bal.) As Toni continues to hide the fact that she’s not a licensed lawyer, it gets harder for her to come clean to Justin. When Sebastian outs Toni as a fraud, she finally does come clean and her conscience is clear, but she loses the man of her dreams. But before she leaves Justin, she warns him that if his company buys Skyline Motors, he’ll be in a heap of debt on account of the class action lawsuit her father is about to file against them.She might not be a real lawyer, but her warning ends up saving Justin billions of dollars and he’s secretly grateful.

The film then jumps forward a year and in that time, Bri and Vinny have gotten engaged, Toni has gone to work for her father, and Justin has found it in his heart to forgive Toni. Cue that climactic Hallmark kiss!

What Movies Will It Remind You Of? All the way down to the title, the film owes a lot to Wedding Crashers, but as far as solid holiday Hallmark movies go, this one reminds me of last year’s Round and Round, which was a really genuine and warm love story built that featured a great supporting cast.

Our Take: Holiday Crashers is built on the familiar premise of a building a relationship on a mistaken identity, getting found out, and then somehow finding a way to come clean while regaining the trust of the people that were duped. The film’s pacing and smart script execute this familiar trope in a way that’s full of heart, humor, and never feels like it’s treading on overly familiar territory.

In fact, because the film is rooted quite a bit in Toni’s relationship with her father and her friendship with Bri, the fact that she’s lying to Justin is just one of many aspects of the story. Lyndsy Fonseca plays Toni earnestly, as a woman who hates that she’s caught up in a lie in the first place. The film’s success really comes from the chemistry between all of the actors – while the romance between Vinny and Bri feels a little more comfortable and real compared to Toni and Justin’s relationship, everyone in the movie is just so dang charming, the whole thing just feels like the ideal way to kick of Hallmark’s Countdown to Christmas.

Parting Shot: It’s a year later, and Bri and Vinny are getting married! At their wedding, Toni is the maid of honor and Justin is a guest. He spots her, and enough time has passed for him to realize that even though she got caught up in her web of lies, there was real chemistry between them. They re-introduce themselves, real names and all, and head to the dance floor.

Performance Worth Watching: As Bri, Daniella Monet lights up the screen and manages to bring the best out of everyone in every scene she’s in.

Memorable Dialogue: “You know, it wasn’t all a lie,” Toni tells Justin when she finally admits that she was pretending to be a lawyer… but her feelings for Justin? Those were very real.

Our Call: Holiday Crashers is an unexpected delight, thanks to a clever and funny script and amazing chemistry between all four leads. STREAM IT!

Liz Kocan is a pop culture writer living in Massachusetts. Her biggest claim to fame is the time she won on the game show Chain Reaction.