Halloween is barely over, but the Christmas barrage has begun. The Disney Channel is offering a dozen movies with Santa Claus suit icons, Hulu has a lot of male-female couples standing in front of Christmas trees, and Netflix seems to be specializing in holiday romcoms and modernized Santa Clauses: Santa's Saint Bernard, An Elf Story, The Claus Family, Father Christmas is Back, Lovehard (sounds like porn)...
Every streaming service makes you click on different parts of the icon for accessing the plot synopsis. If you choose wrong, the movie starts. I just started Lovehard. There better be some hard men in it.
Scene 1: Establishing shots of L.A., while a song tells us that it's Christmas. Cut to a woman putting on makeup and high heels, checking her Tindr, and hitting the bar to meet her hunk. Ugh! He looks nothing like his profile pic!
She tries again and again, then goes to work dressed as a stereotypic mousy librarian. She tells us that her disaster-dates are fodder for her popular online column. So she can't find true love, or her writing career will end. Nevertheless, she's longing for true love. Everyone else in the world is paired off; why isn't she?
Wisecracking best friend has the solution: you've only looking within a 5 mile radius. "You've got to look outside of West Hollywood." My home town, Gay Paradise! Or is this going to be a gay-free Weho?
The slezoid boss (Matty Finocchio) drops by. She wants to do something else for her next column, but he nixes the idea: you're famous for bad dates, so go on one! "But it's making me miserable." "We're all miserable, dear." You're living in Gay Paradise! I had maybe five miserable days in ten years!
Scene 2: She (no names yet) drags a real Christmas tree into her house, which from the establishing shot is nowhere near West Hollywood. She starts a chat with Josh on Tindr, who lives in New York, about the best Christmas movie: Love Actually or Die Hard?
Scene 3: Natalie (I had to check wikipedia to find her name) jogging with BFF at Elysian Park (again, nowhere near West Hollywood). Josh is rich, well-educated, and hot. At least his pictures are hot -- he could be old and stuff. No -- he sends a photo with "Hi, Natalie," so he's real. Land him! If there aren't some Weho gay characters soon, I'm out of here.
Scene 4: While she is in the bathtub, Josh sends her a dick pick (of Richard Nixon, har har). They spend the night together by telephone (romantic stuff, no sex).
Scene 5: Work. Sleazy Boss wants to know when her next Disaster Date column will be ready. "It's just that...I'm in love...so, could I write a column about that?" "HECK, NO! People love it when you are miserable." He's right. Praise is boring, complaints are fun.
Throwaway coming out line: Boss says "Leave the serious stuff to Steve." Natalie: "Screw Steve!" Boss: "I did. Hashtag don't tell." A downlow gay guy?
Natalie impulsively decides to fly to New York to surprise Josh and "get my happy ending." Boss: "Someone you've only known for one day, and have never met in person? Sure, write about that. It will be an interesting disaster."
Scene 6: Packing. BFF fully supports the idea: "This might be the sanest thing you've ever done." Really?
Later, she arrives at the airport in Lake Placid, a ritzy resort town upstate. Cold, snow, howling wind, and her luggage is lost. Cute slacker Eric tells her to fill out a form and drop it in the "after hours" slot. The airport is closing.
Eric (Fletcher Donovan, left) is also her uber driver. Turns out that he knows Josh Lin -- they went to high school together, and smoked a lot of weed in his basement. They argue over whether "Baby, It's Cold Outside" is about sexual assault.
Josh's house is dolled up with tacky lights and ornaments. He's definitely not rich! His Mom answers the door: "Josh isn't home right now, but you're welcome to wait." He lives with his parents? Uh-oh.
Natalie is introduced to Josh's father and grandmother. They're all surprised that Josh has a friend of any sort-- and a girlfriend! "That's off the charts!" Uh-oh, Josh is socially inept.
Josh (Jimmy O. Yang) arrives. Not the guy in the photos. She's been catfished! The real Josh is Asian, which makes Natalie's disgust seem rather racist. She flees. Josh follows. "What kind of psycho sets up a fake profile?" "What kind of psycho flies across the country without telling you?"
Natalie rushes off, and stops into the nearest bar, where Christmas karaoke is going on. Two guys are getting very chummy -- maybe they're a gay couple? Suddenly Tag (Darren Barnet, top photo), the guy in Josh's profile pics, arrives and join them. So he's gay? Natalie decides to win his heart -- or his penis -- by singing a sexy "I Would Do Anything for Love." All three of them gaze in slack-jawed horniness. Nope, no gay people here.
There are no gay people here and they aren't even in West Hollywood anymore, so I'm going to stop there and look up Sean Depner, who plays minor character Chip.