REVIEW: ‘Meet Me Next Christmas’ Boasts Strong Start To Holiday Season

Meet Me Next Christmas starts this Netflix holiday viewing season right. The world is extra dark right now, and for some of us, it’s the time of year when we glom hard onto holiday movies to distract us from real life. Throw in an extra helping of romance, and you have the recipe for comfort. It shouldn’t be difficult, yet not every holiday movie hits the mark. Thankfully, Meet Me Next Christmas hits the right spot – both romantically and festively – in selling us holiday romance goodness.

Meet Me Next Christmas wastes no time setting up the conflict. A chance airport meeting between Layla (Christina Milian) and the suave James (Kofi Siriboe) is memorable enough that, one year later, James comes to mind after Layla breaks up with her partner. She recalls their conversation and races to snag a highly coveted ticket to the Pentatonix holiday concert, where they were hoping to meet if fate worked out for them. Unfortunately, the tickets are practically sold out. This is where Teddy (Devale Ellis) enters the picture.

Earnest and determined to go the extra mile, ticket concierge Teddy will do everything he can to get Layla that ticket. This mission to acquire the sacred Pentatonix ticket leads to questionable decisions and hilarious hijinks for the duo. From a clear suspicious scalper encounter going haywire to meeting up with an incredibly eccentric couple that’ll have you raising eyebrows to a slightly cringe drag-style dance-off, the two do whatever it takes to get a ticket.

While their adventures are incredibly entertaining, the joy of Meet Me Next Christmas is seeing how Layla and Teddy slowly grow attached, even if they don’t see it until the final moment. Everyone around them can see how hard Teddy is gunning for Layla, while Layla doesn’t realize what is under her nose. It is a tried-and-true romance cliche that can easily make one’s eyes roll. However, Milian’s and Ellis’s chemistry and natural flow make it impossible to judge too harshly. They make it easy to invest in their characters because of how well they mesh together.

The naturalness between Milian and Ellis is a huge factor in why Meet Me Next Christmas sets a pretty high bar for what’s coming out from Netflix this holiday romance season. No one goes into these kinds of films expecting anything less than good ol’ holiday cheesiness. Sometimes, this results in stunted performances or really awkward couple matches that make you question what casting saw when pairing actors together. This is not the case here. The ease with which they sell their budding romance and how gung-ho they are to handle the crazed antics thrown at them makes the film enjoyable.

Some tonal inconsistencies make their performances stand out against the rest of the cast, which may not necessarily be the greatest thing. Milian’s Layla and Ellis’s Teddy are more grounded, which, when paired next to a more eccentric character, creates a bit of tonal dissonance as if there was some indecision on how cheesy to go. It’s a minor quibble, particularly since Milian and Ellis are the highlight. And the reality is that their characters are meant to be the most normal in this film.

Of course, we can’t talk about Meet Me Next Christmas without tackling the inclusion of Pentatonix. The group is great in the film, delivering their respective lines with the energy you’d expect. There are even tongue-in-cheek moments poking fun at their random bursts of song that will generate a couple of laughs. Are they really necessary for the film plot itself? Not really. You could swap them in any other musical group and get a similar result storywise. But the acapella group is so dang delightful that you can kind of ignore the generic plot point they’ve been resigned to.

While the plot is pretty standard, Meet Me Next Christmas stands out with how kinetic Christina Milian and Devale Ellis are. Part of the joy in holiday rom-coms is being able to believe and invest in the couple onscreen. And their chemistry is so palpable, you’ll want to scream at them to hurry up and kiss already! Their performance elevates an otherwise formulaic plot, kickstarting the holiday romance season off on a high note.

Meet Me Next Christmas is streaming exclusively on Netflix.