Ghosting: The Spirit of Christmas
Well Excel Randomizer, mysterious entity that is picking my holiday movies this year, I don't know what to do this one. It's not a Christmas movie, but a movie that takes place in late December, it takes place in Los Angeles which further removes it from the Holidays, our main character is dead, it has profanity, it has sex, and being on Freeform, as opposed to the other Holiday movie outlets, it does not respect the Hallmarky formula. I honestly don't how this movie is going to end, and that's damned unsettling. For that reason, I must insert SPOILER ALERT, and yes, we spoil every other Holiday movie we tell you about on this little unread blog, but not really because you already know, way beforehand, how they are all going to end. Not this one though. Anything goes.
Say hello to Jess (Aisha Dee) who so cute and has cheeks so chubby you just want to pinch them until she dies! Which she's going to actually do, but she is super adorable! She's chatting with her best friend Kara (Kimiko Glenn) who is so adorable I just want to take her to my taxidermist, have her stuffed and stick her on my mantle. She's so cute! These two literally spend the whole movie trying to out adorable each other and I can't pick a winner. Anyway, these two cuties talk cute stuff, mainly about Jess's date later that night, which she isn't all that excited about.
Ah, but then she actually meets Ben (Kendrick Sampson) who is either super sexy or super sleepy, I'm not sure which one, but the look and the game is all working on Jess, and Ben also is completely smitten. So excited about this date Jess had to jump in her car and call her bestie to let her know that this was the best date she's ever been on, then she gets a funny text from Ben, and then she get's T-boned by a pickup and dies.
BUT NOT SO FAST!!! At her funeral, which judging from that accident should've been a closed casket if one were to ask me, Jess magically appears. Obviously her parents and Kara are destroyed by her sudden demise, but Kara gets a surprise when Jess shows up right in front of her while she was trying to meditate her grief away. They both freak out for about fifteen seconds and then just roll with it. Kara is the only one who can see Jess so they decide Jess should do things she didn't do in life, so they have a montage of a fun day. Across town, Ben, who has no idea Jess is dead as of yet, is whining to his sister Mae (Jazz Raycole) about being ghosted by Jess because she hasn't texted him back. Mae mentions that she might be dead.
Now that the montage of fun day is over, Jess needs to know why she hasn't moved on, so Earth girl Kara takes her to meet her Spiritual Advisor Chrissy (Missi Pyle) who says something about how she needs 'Big Love' or some nonsense. Across town, Mae, using the power of The Internet has discovered the unfortunate news that Jess is actually dead, which Ben doesn't take all that well, so they go out to get hammered. LA is a big ass city but I guess there's only a few places where hip beautiful people go and that's where Jess see's Ben nursing a beer. Surprise! Ben can see her too! Kara and Mae see each other as well and their sparks start to fly, which is not an inconsequential part of this movie. After Ben is convinced that Jess is actually dead, and after some cajoling, he agrees to 'date' Jess so she can find 'Big Love' and ascend.
So as I mentioned, I don't know what's going to happen in this movie. Is Jess going to come back to life so she and Ben can be together? Is she going to reverse time like Superman '78 and stop the accident from happening? Is Jess going posses Kara's body and live a life with Ben and Kara moving forward? I don't know man! What I didn't expect, through some advice from the spiritual advisor, was for Jess to temporarily achieve corporeal form so these two can bang it out, but that's what happened. And when Ben wakes up after a spirited night of zombie sex, Jess is gone. She has ascended. Ben tells Kara and they are all sad.
BUT NOT SO FAST!!! Jess did not ascend, she shows up at Kara's apartment where everybody is mourning her ascension at the moment, and let my man know she just left in the morning after zombie sex. She had her reasons, but the ghost ghosted him which made Ben mad at the dead woman he had sex with last night, and he stomps out. Then she gets into a big 'ol spat with Kara for reasons we won't get into and now she too is pissed at the dead woman. Why are these things happening to Jess? Well, the Spiritual Advisor was right, it was Big Love, but not Big Sex Love with Ben, but Big Homegirl Love with her bestie. She needed to release Kara so Kara could get her wings and fly free and live her best life. Hey, I'm just telling you what they told me. And now, with that resolved, Jess can ascend... which she does. Movie over.
BUT NOT SO FAST!!! A year later Jess is hanging out in what I guess is a purgatory bar? Hell if I know. When Ben shows up! Ben is dead too yo! Yay! Not going to get into all of that either, but Jess isn't nearly as happy about this as one would imagine, not that Ben did anything wrong, it's just that it's Jess's day to visit Earth and look at her bestie and her unfurled wings, so she doesn't have time for him right now. Ben and Jess have eternity to have dead people sex. I guess. At Christmas.
My friends... this movie was bonkers. Nutty as a fruitcake. I don't know what to make of the narrative as they didn't settle on one until like the last five minutes, I don't know what to make of the ending, and I think the ultimate message was Ho's over Bro's? Maybe? I don't know man! The ghost thing was odd in that I guess the filmmakers decided not to ask any ghost relevant questions for they had little time that tiny plot point. Like Jess can't touch anything, but then she can kind of touch everything. Or I imagine people in Southern California always talk themselves in public since Ben and Kara were constantly talking to Jess in movie theaters, restaurants, beaches, parks and at no time did anybody around find it odd that these two were having intense conversations and arguments with literally nobody. But while this movie may have lacked focus, cohesiveness and a solid narrative, it did have charm to burn. If you were to put these same actors in a movie that was a little more logical, not much more, just a little more, I can almost guarantee that you would have a really entertaining movie on your hands. Heck, the five of them, them being Aisha, Kendrick, Kimiko, Jazz and of course Missi Pyle almost rescued this one from itself on charm and chemistry alone. Almost.
The vomit worthiness was almost non-existent in this movie, since it's not a Hallmarky holiday type movie, and one that takes place in Los Angeles, so no snow, no mistletoe, no Christmas trees, no hot cocoa... nothing. We did get Christmas cookies, but they were female Santa cookies as Jess was battling against the patriarchy, but I must say that this completely non-Christmas Christmas-movie did have a banging Christmas soundtrack. That by itself is worth one vomit.
Freeform does it again. That being not giving me a Christmas movie at Christmas. And ghost sex. Something you are not going to see very often.
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