A Merry Little Ex-Mas is the kind of holiday release that arrives with good intentions — and, unfortunately, little conviction. It isn’t bad, it isn’t irritating, it isn’t even disastrous. But it also never quite moves you, surprises you, or genuinely makes you laugh. It stays in the middle lane: charming, pleasant, cute… and that’s about it.

What strikes me most is that the film tries to signal a meaningful shift within Christmas romantic comedies. We’re no longer dealing with the neurotic, clumsy woman desperate for love. Here, the protagonist is someone who loves, who has a life, a family, a past — but who still carries a quiet sense that she’s left something unfinished within herself, especially professionally. And that, in itself, is an interesting starting point.

Kate (Alicia Silverstone), recently divorced, is getting ready to sell the house where she raised her daughter. Before doing so, she wants one last perfect Christmas — a symbolic gesture, almost a ritual of closure. But everything unravels when her ex-husband (Oliver Hudson) shows up with his new, dazzling girlfriend. The initial shock sets off a story that doesn’t rely on the typical “magical meet-cute,” but instead on personal rediscovery, on reappreciating what once existed, and — perhaps the rarest thing in the genre — adult conversations between two people who made mistakes together.

The film does try to explore emotional maturity, second chances, the bonds that survive endings, the ways we grow, and the pain and freedom that come with that. It’s all there. But something essential to a romantic comedy is missing: the laughter.

A Merry Little Ex-Mas simply isn’t funny.
It’s sweet, gentle, comforting. But it doesn’t spark real laughter, doesn’t trigger that involuntary smile, doesn’t go for the light absurdity that holiday films rely on to keep us engaged.

Alicia Silverstone, of course, carries the movie with her timeless charisma. But her Kate — this woman who feels larger than the town she’s in, richer and more complex than the screenplay allows — never fully develops. The film hints at layers, but seems too timid to explore them.

It’s a shame, because the seed of something richer is there: a holiday comedy about a woman who loves, but who also wants to rediscover herself; about families that change; about what stays and what must be released.

It just needed more courage — and a lot more humor — to become something memorable.