Holidate: Netflix Christmas film starring Emma Roberts is getting very mixed reactions

Film stars Emma Roberts as a woman sick of being pestered about being single by her family

Netflix’s new festive feature film Holidate has, predictably, become a hit on the streaming service.

The film starring Emma Roberts is currently the No 1 most-watched in the UK, with some fans praising it as an ideal guilty pleasure ahead of Christmas.

Roberts plays Sloane, a single woman sick of being badgered by her family for not having a date for the holidays. She meets Jackson at a shopping mall where the pair strike up a conversation about their respectively awful Christmases, and agree to be one another’s date for future holidays.

On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a 43 per cent rating based on 37 reviews, and an audience rating of 51 per cent.

The general consensus reads: “Holidate’s self-aware approach to rom-com formula is refreshing, but it's offset by a questionable premise and unnecessarily vulgar jokes.”

On social media, other viewers had mixed reactions to the surprisingly crude humour for a Christmas film.

Some have criticised Holidate’s multiple jokes about cancer, with one viewer commenting: “Completely lost me at the chemo jokes because nothing says Christmas movie like a cancer joke...”

Another questioned “how is Holidate real” as they shared a clip in which Jackson’s date in an early scene makes an explicit sexual reference in front of her parents.

Other viewers seemed divided as to whether the film was good or bad. One called it the “perfect pick-me-up film”, while another claimed it was “worse than I could have imagined”.

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“I knew Holidate would be a cringe watch but damn that was bad,” another said.

Another pointed out that Netflix is evidently trying to compete with Hallmark in the Christmas movie market, but so far hadn’t quite managed to get it right.

“I think Hallmark has perfected the Christmas movie cheesiness,” Twitter user @myspaceout said. 

“Some are better than others, but they’re never as bad as Holidate is to me. I can list a few past Hallmark Christmas movies that I genuinely enjoyed, but I can never recommend someone watch Holidate, even ironically.”

Holidate also stars Jessica Capshaw, Kristin Chenoweth, Manish Dayal and Cynthy Wu. 

Meanwhile, fans are convinced that Ryan Gosling made a cameo in the film during a scene where he is mentioned by Roberts’s character.