Where to Watch: Netflix

Release Date: December 2021

Genre: Christmas Romcom

Director: Michael Mayer

My Rating: 4/5

Letterboxd Rating: 2.9/5

Letterboxd Summary: PETER AND NICK ARE JUST FRIENDS. PETER’S FAMILY KNOWS BETTER.

Desperate to avoid his family’s judgment about his perpetual single status, Peter convinces his best friend Nick to join him for the holidays and pretend that they’re now in a relationship. But when Peter’s mother sets him up on a blind date with her handsome trainer James, the plan goes awry.

Review

Single All the Way is an absolutely adorable gay Christmas movie that came out on Netflix this year! I was absolutely so excited to see all of the LGBTQ Christmas movies coming out on Lifetime, Hallmark, Netflix, and more this Christmas season. In the past all we’ve had is Carol, and then Happiest Season had a decent amount of success and the floodgates have opened! Yay! Of course, unlike the two previously mentioned movies, Single All the Way is about gay men. This is less exciting for me, but I still watched and reviewed it nonetheless.

The movie centers around best friends Peter and Nick. Peter’s family, like the families in many a Christmas romcom before, are desperate for Peter to be in a relationship. He’s come home single every single other year, and his siblings are already married with kids. Fortunately, he thinks that he’ll finally be able to bring home his boyfriend this year. They’ve been dating for over 3 months (a record for Peter) and everything is going great. The boyfriend, a cardiologist, agrees to come home for Christmas.

Unfortunately, the plan soon goes awry.

Nick, Peter’s (also gay) best friend and roommate is employed by Task Rabbit. I have to assume this was sponsored content because we heard soooo much about it, but basically it’s just an app where you can request freelance labor. Nick gets a request to put up Christmas lights on some woman’s house, and just as he’s finishing up her husband gets home. Who is the husband? That’s right, you guessed it- Peter’s boyfriend.

At this point I was highly stressed that we were going to have yet another movie about a closeted gay person on Christmas (Happiest Season I’m looking at you) but was pleasantly surprised when Nick went home and told Peter, and Peter just… broke up with him. No looking back. The only problem with this plan was that Peter reallyyyy didn’t want to go home single, so he convinced Nick to go with him.

Peter’s family already loves Nick as Peter’s friend and roommate, and have been encouraging them to get together for years. Peter thinks it would be great if him and Nick fake dated while they were home so that his family would be happy! Nick starts to hate the idea but then finally agrees to it. At this point I’m 100% sure we’re going to have a classic fake dating scenario, but there were a few more twists that I wasn’t ready for.

Peter and Nick fly home, and before they can confess that they’re now in love, Peter’s mom– Who insists on being called Christmas Carol– announces that she set Peter up on a blind date! She used to believe that Peter and Nick should be together, but recently read a book called “Supporting Your LGBTAA Child” (she cannot get the acronym right) and learned that gay people can be friends! It’s all very cute and the family is very supportive, if overbearing and a bit confused.

The rest of the story involves a very confusing mishmash of overinvolved family and repressed romantic feelings. Just as Peter starts to date the blind date boy, his family (minus Christmas Carol) decide that Nick and Peter are both in love with each other and just need a little push. The family tries to push them together and Peter and Nick awkwardly dance around their true feelings. It’s a true Christmas romcom where the couple is clearly fated from the beginning but it just takes a little bit of Christmas magic to get them there!

I honestly really enjoyed this movie. It was funny in a stereotypical Christmas way while also being gay. I was happy that they didn’t try to do anything too special to make this movie “different” than its straight counterparts. Sometimes it’s nice to watch a movie where there’s no (or very little, I guess, if you consider the now ex-boyfriend from the beginning) homophobia or discussion about how “gay is wrong”. It was just a happy movie where the parents were supportive and we could root for love. Our protagonist even had multiple options to choose from!

Even saying that the movie mirrored straight Christmas romcoms, it did still approach queer themes in a lighthearted way. `The characters talked about how there were no gay people in their small hometown, and Peter and Nick had both moved to LA to find more people to date. When Peter’s sister suggested that they have Peter and Nick work on the play, there were a couple of comments made by the family as to whether that was “stereotyping because they’re gay” (no, it was the fact that Peter’s a photographer and Nick could build the set) that felt very humorously real for a family who was fully supportive but still aware of their own straightness.

I personally loved this movie. If you have Netflix and are looking for a gay Christmas romcom, you should watch this one.

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