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thewomanwhowatchedchristmas · 6 months

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I Hate Christmas (2022)

My first impression is that it’s just the Italian version of the Norwegian series “Home for Christmas” that I’ve previously reviewed. The first episode even has the same title. Either way, I’ll still watch it. I’m gonna be lazy and not color code any names though because it’s hard to include everyone all the time without spoiling things.

1:1 The Big Christmas Lie

Gianna (Pilar Fogliati) is a nurse who has been single for 3 years and, at 30, her family is starting to get worried about her not having a family. Ridiculous, but also so relatable. She lies and tells her family she has a boyfriend and she’ll bring him to Christmas. So now she’s working overtime to find a boyfriend.

1:2 Bicycles

We follow Gianna on several bad dates that don’t work out because mostly these guys suck, but also Gianna does not pull any punches. Which good for her. The music keeps tripping me up a little because it’s American, but it’s also not Christmas music, it’s more like dance club songs but over a landscape of Venice. I know American music is popular around the world, but I don’t really expect EDM as a transition song, ya know? Anyway, so Gianna gives up on meeting guys on the street and tries Tinder (shout out- that’s how my husband and I met!) and goes out with a high school aged dude named Davide (Nicolas Maupas) who, based on the montage that occurred, fucks really well. Might go look up the age of consent in Italy real quick.

1:3 I’m Special

Gianna goes on a date with a local politician (who acts like he hates being famous when he’s not even famous) and runs into her parents and finds out that the politician used to date her mom back in college. Gross. Clearly he has a type. So she ditches him with her parents and goes to the high schooler again. There are some jokes at the top of the episode about making sure he’s legal, so that’s either less or more gross, I can’t decide.

1:4 Perspectives

Gianna fucks things up with the high school boy by making a joke that makes him think she’s trying to get serious. I hate this plot line. It grosses me out so much. Anyway. After pedophilia didn’t work out, Titti (Beatrice Arnera) (her roommate) convinces her to dress nice (slutty) and go to the nurse Christmas party and drink. At the party, she runs into some familiar faces who promptly overstay their welcome in her life. But Umberto (Glen Blackhall) (a doctor from the hospital she works at) is still into her and she still hasn’t realized that. If by the end of this episode, you don’t kinda hate her mother, congratulations for your healthy relationship with your family because that’s the only way her mother could seem like a joke.

1:5 The Party’s Over

So I watched the last two episodes back to back, there might be some bleeding between the two. I’ll do my best. So Gianna had an eventful evening. She baked a cake for Davide only to discover him (with the cake in her hands) swapping spit with a girl his own age. Woof. So then she meets up with her besties (minus Titti who is with a man🍆) Margherita (Fiorenza Pieri), her older sister, and Caterina (Cecilia Bertozzi), the chick who owns the cafe they are drinking in. They get drunk with the guy who works for Caterina (who she has a thing for) named Thomas (Marcos Piacentini). Gianna is super drunk, so Margherita and Thomas walk her home. Gianna also makes an interesting discovery.

1:6 Like a Nativity Scene

This episode does end on a cliff hanger, but season 2 is out in a couple weeks. This episode ends up being a really great family love and acceptance of each other style. Umberto finally shoots his shot, but gets called into the ER before Gianna can respond. Gianna gets really upset she got kicked out (her patient coming off of a lot of drugs had complications) and gets cheered up by Diego (Alan Cappelli Goetz), the deaf custodian, who has secretly been pining after Caterina this whole time. But who comes to dinner at the parents’ house?

I’m gonna take a minute here to compare this to the Norwegian version because I have to get it out somewhere, but then I’ll talk about the season on it’s own. I think the main character in this version is more likable because of her zany fourth wall breaks, but I also think there was tonal change. In Home for Christmas, Johanne felt truly alone when she was lonely. In I Hate Christmas, it felt more like Gianna felt like she was missing out, but her family and friends were all still very close. And that might be to make it more similar to Italian culture, I’m not sure. But I know when shifting something from British to American, the asshole character is often shifted to the idiot character because we Americans don’t think assholes are funny. We do think idiots are funny. I also think this version, I Hate Christmas, did a better job of representing certain audiences that may not get as much screen time, like the suitor who used a wheelchair, Carlo (Marco Rossetti), and Diego being deaf was much better subplot than the clown dude from Home for Christmas that just didn’t speak Norwegian. I think I still related to Home for Christmas more because I’m quiet like Johanne and also I’m way more used to snow than boating and biking everywhere. Although that was really cool to watch.

Okay, now just talking about this season of I Hate Christmas. Christmas felt very commercial in this show. Like, idk why the nativity scene sounded like a show of wealth, but it did. This also felt like Gianna was maturing a lot. Imagine being 30 when you realize other people have problems you might not know about. I also think it’s interesting to have Gianna not stick things out with the rich suitor. Yes, he was intense and pushy, but he was also sweet and thoughtful. I also liked him better than the doctor, but I don’t relate to Gianna much anyway. I also enjoyed the bit about private vs public healthcare in Italy, which isn’t exactly the same as the US because our health system is weird, but a lot of people in the US do have to travel to bigger cities to get better quality care. Like where I live is very medium-small sized city that doesn’t have any major attractions for tourism or shopping or family activities, so it’s hard to attract good medical professionals because there’s not much for them to do besides work, so a lot of people travel 2-3 hours for better medical care. Sometimes they have to for specialized care, but also sometimes they choose to because they’ve had medical procedures botched by local doctors.

I’ve gotten off topic. Anyway, this show isn’t bad even though I feel like I’ve been kinda hard on it. It was weird that the song “edamame” by bbno$ was in every single episode though. I’ll still watch season 2 when it comes out because I want to compare it to Home for Christmas season 2. But maybe I Hate Christmas will last more than 2 seasons! Overall, 3 stars.

#christmas #review #movie review #christmas movies #netflix #2022 #i hate christmas #pilar fogliati #beatrice arnera #fiorenza pieri #glen blackhall #alan cappelli goetz #cecilia bertozzi #nicolas maupas #marcos piacentini #marco rossetti

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