The newly released Netflix movie, “Let it Snow,” was horribly executed. Although the movie had a notable cast, including Jacob Batalon, Shameik Moore and Mitchell Hope, the 93-minute film was subpar at best. The storyline follows a group of friends who get together for the Christmas break as a snowstorm hits their town. Though the movie isn’t great, if you really want to get in the holiday mood with friends over break, you can use peppermint bark, hot cocoa and fuzzy blankets to try to make watching the mediocre film a better experience.

The opening scene begins with a truck driving into Laurel, Ill., on a snowy day while an unpleasantly auto-tuned Christmas song plays in the background. The main cast’s daily lives are shown through them doing schoolwork, singing, drawing and so on. Right off the bat, it was clear the movie was going to be a cliché teenage love story. When I first saw all the main characters trying to have one big party, I knew it was going to be a knock-off “Love Actually.” Besides the generic storyline, there were many wrong elements throughout the movie.

The film’s jokes were absolutely terrible and it was difficult to watch the actors attempt them. During one scene from the movie, Keon, a main character who is the person that is trying to host the huge party, is talking to Tobin, another boy main character who is invited to the party, and says, “Just tell her you want the same relationship, plus boning.” This was supposed to be funny, but it wasn’t hard to keep a straight face the entire time. 

Not only were the jokes poor and undeveloped, but the acting was not “Oscar-worthy.” At one point, Dorrie, one of the main characters, said, “Then he’s stupider than people who blow on ice cream.” The lack of emotion made it a badly executed joke, and it should have been cut from the movie altogether. 

The actors were consistently overreacting as well, which was cringe-worthy, as the facial expressions seemed overexaggerated, making everything look fake and cheesy. Throughout the movie, they tried to hide their lack of acting talent behind the script’s heavily clichéd dialogues and actions. One instance is when Dorrie and Addie, another one of the main teenager characters, were talking, and Addie says, “He’s going to break up with me!” and Dorrie responds, saying, “He has to be the dumbest person alive to break up with you.” I mean, come on, now it’s obvious that something is going to happen with that relationship. The dialogue is set up for an easy giveaway.

The view also switches between all the different main characters for only a few minutes at a time. Each character’s life is shown for a few minutes, then quickly onto the next, which makes it hard to follow the storyline for all eight characters. 

The lack of grand surprises or plot-twists also made for a boring watch. For the vast majority of the movie, I knew exactly what was going to happen next. It was overly simplistic and incredibly basic. In the beginning, I predicted what would happen at the end, and I was right.

Another aspect of the movie that completely failed was the attempt at raising awareness for the LGBTQ+ community. About a quarter of the way in the movie, Dorrie opens up about her past relationship with a girl and how she was in love with her. However, they only showed her relationship and love interest for a small portion of the movie. The writers could have shown her story of how she came out more, written about other relationships she had been in or even elaborated on how being in the LGBTQ+ community had affected her personally. However, the writers completely skipped over these aspects of her life, though these additions could have made the story and plot line richer.

Altogether, the movie was a complete bust. I really wish it had been a good movie, since I love Christmas movies such as “Home Alone” and “Elf,” but throughout the entire movie I was either cringing or completely apathetic. Even the advertisements about a month before the movie was released seemed poor. It was typically just a 10-second clip showing a “funny” scene from the movie and then the “Let it Snow” logo afterward. After actually watching the movie, I would not recommend it. This film tried to display teenage love and LGBTQ+ experiences with a touch of humor, but completely failed in doing so. If you want to watch a movie that has a well-written, non-cliché script, I do not recommend “Let it Snow.”