Holiday Joy (2016) Reviews

• inoffensive holiday family movie

  SnoopyStyle2017-08-14

  Joy Hoffsteder (Bailee Madison) has a dysfunctional family. Her single dad Bob (French Stewart) is over his head. She pines to be in her seemingly perfect neighbor's family. She's a band geek with only one friend. She gets picked on by the popular cheerleaders and has an unrequited crush on Tom. It's the Christmas holiday. She keeps picking Change from her deck of cards. Then she gets hit by a car driven by the 'perfect' neighbor Marcie. It's a body switched into Marcie's family. She becomes the popular volleyball captain with boyfriend Tom but things are not all good. Her new sister hates her. Her old best friend is scared of her. Her old family is a mess and she's not in love with her new life either. This is perfectly fine for a simple family holiday. Bailee is good at playing the trying too hard character. She should steer into that persona. Everything else is fine. It's a Wonderful Life. It's all that but not as good. The production is a little better than TV movie level. Don't expect too much.

• Funny & Not Cheesy

  TeamRocket_Jessie2016-12-18

  This holiday movie will not give you trite rants about the holiday spirit or bombard you with clichés. Through the power of her tarot cards, a girl finds herself having the kind of life she envied, but realizes that everyone has to work hard to get what they want and that no one can earn friendships with everyone. Instead of moping, she takes responsibility and tries to adapt to her new lifestyle. The bond between her (Bailee Madison from Once Upon A Time) and her father (French Stewart from 3rd Rock From The Sun) is the biggest highlight. It is also important that she turns down advances from an emotionally abusive boy at school. It is an all-around feel-good movie.

• Great watch but has a lot of holes

  nanna82017-12-02

  The movie is a great concept. It's what most girls go to bed dreaming of - a perfect life - getting spoilt by parents, having so much money your parents get you whatever car you want, focusing on your hobbies and not having to do your homework, having the perfect body and your dream guy... However there are some holes, and the ending was horribly underwhelming. First of all, the boyfriend's clingy-ness. There are signs she's getting sick of it but come on if a guy is being such a clingy mess and so jealous, why not leave? He's not even goodlooking, especially with that personality! So sure she's getting fed up with him and there is the moment where she pretty much says to her ginger friend to take him, but it's all ruined by the ending where she's excited that he's turned up to her house. And before I get on to the ending, what was with like 10 people coming into her hospital room at once? Doctor: you suffer from memory loss so I'll bring in some people who should jog your memory *whole town piles in*. It would've been more realistic for just the dad to come in and be like oh my gosh you're awake thank god and her slowly starting to remember (though it was a bit of a dumb idea for her to have memory loss). Also, what's with the perfect winged eyeliner?? She's probably been passed out for like a month and her make up is on point! And her doctor is acting like she just came in with telling her to blink (even though her eyes are closed) and instead she opens her eyes, BLINKS, and says she can't blink but she can talk...... there is no mention of the time she's been in there but another hole - when all her family pile in (why on earth would her neighbours be sitting around waiting for her to wake up they should be at home worried about a lawsuit they weren't that close) and her brother and the neighbour daughter are together with her brother's arms around the girl as they stand in front of Joy. Then afterwards when they get home Joy THEN notices that they're together and her dad says they bonded while at the hospital. When was this?? There is literally no indication of time. Then she's told that a group of girls from the cheerleading squad or something and the guy she fancied came to see her... WILDLY unrealistic. Why would these popular people suddenly care about her? I can see the connection the film makers were trying to make, but it should've been approached in a different way. Another thing that annoyed me to the point where I was facepalming was when she kept assuming that people from her real life were friends with her. Poor ginger girl kept getting stalked and her best guy friend was pretty much assaulted. Is she that dopey that she can't catch on? Speaking of her ginger friend, where was she at the hospital or even at her house at the end? Then the way she treated her brother in both lives annoyed me because it's just so unrealistic. In her real life she was like a mother to him and fair enough, but little siblings don't listen to you no matter what if you don't have the title of a parent. I have a little sister and while she listens to most of what I tell her she does it with an ughhh attitude or I have to tell her 50 times. And is she not smart enough to catch on in her other life that he doesn't know her? Fair enough she stormed out out of habit when he was messing with pots, but when he retaliated she should've realised and gone oh no oh god and raced back, not still believe she was right in yelling at a stranger. And finally, the ending. THE ENDING. I already said that the ginger friend wasn't there and etc was unrealistic, but they should have closed it off with her going back to school and seeing her ginger friend and being overwhelmed because she missed her, then being disgusted by her crush now she knows how clingy he is, starting to run with her neighbour was good but she should've maybe made a goal of joining the volleyball team. There was no character development, she didn't achieve anything by going to her other life. She was supposed to learn from it. She did seem a bit dumb though for example assuming her classes would be the same. If that happened to me I'd be finding my diary reading through everything and seeing what was the same if anything and what was different. And also her mum I her fake life promised her a car. She should've reached her birthday and received it or maybe they could've promised it the month before Christmas when daddy would get his Christmas bonus. So she'd already have had lessons and passed her test and could hop straight in. Or even if she was looking at cars online. Also a walk in closet would make more sense for such a rich family. I was disappointed when she opened the wardrobe and it looked smaller than mine. Overall, excellent acting. A good film with a great storyline ruined by terrible writing.

• Not worth it.

  acborgia2018-11-05

  First off I wouldn't call this a holiday movie, just a movie that happens to take place at Christmas time. While the concept was good but the classic, "the grass isn't always greener on the outside", the telling of it fell flat. The ending was just down right horrible and made zero sense.

• Wonderful Family Movie

  beakalin2017-02-22

  I can't remember the last time I saw a movie this great. A positive life lesson with an engaging plot line. Witty and clean humour that everyone can relate to. A movie great for all ages. I've seen this movie more than once now, and enjoy it every time. Hope to see it on Freeform next Christmas.