Defector Watches A Christmas Movie: ‘The Merry Gentlemen’

This is the time of year when the best, biggest, and most ambitious movies come out. Not Oscar season, but rather that stretch when the halls of streaming services are decked with the brightly lit, thinly disguised advertisements that are the year’s new Christmas movies. There are more than 100 new Christmas films to watch this holiday season, and whether that number horrifies or excites you depends upon how much of a freak you are for the festive. Sabrina is proud to say they are a real Christmas freak, and this year they asked some of their colleagues to watch some of the most, uh, available new holiday movies. The final movie in our lineup is The Merry Gentlemen, Netflix’s answer to the longstanding question: How will Chad Michael Murray withstand the ravages of time?

Sabrina: Well, well, well. It’s come to this: the finale of Defector Watches A Christmas Movie. Thank you both for experiencing this movie with me, and thank you Justin for shepherding this series. Let’s get right to it: This movie operates on the premise that a big-city girl must help save her parent’s local small-town nightclub. Did your hometowns have a local nightclub? Did you ever go there, and would you consider it worth saving?

Rachelle: Truly honored to be here. I’m sure the suburbs of Dallas-Fort Worth contain local nightclubs, but honestly I’ve never felt like they’re any of my business. There was a quintessential run-down dive bar that was kitty-corner to a gas station in a strip mall parking lot near one of the many apartment complexes that I lived in. My older brother and I always joked about going, but I think we were both a little afraid of getting hate-crimed. If I had the opportunity to save it, I probably wouldn’t. I’m sorry to those people, even though I’m still pretty sure they would’ve hate-crimed me. 

Justin: As a big-city boy (and we city dwellers are the actual villain of this piece), I have fond memories of sneaking off to shows at First Avenue in downtown Minneapolis (famous for Prince, Morris Day and The Time, I was going to dirty lil rave nights and hip-hop in my youth) and I’m sure my mom would not have liked that I was going, but would have wanted me to save it from an evil landlord or Jamba Juice franchisee.

Sabrina: The downtown area near my suburban Bay Area home had one establishment that could generously be classified as a nightclub, as it had no windows and was always dark. I convinced my two best friends to come with me as soon as we had fake IDs, and they reluctantly agreed. But as soon as we entered, not only were we not carded, but we were also the only ones there, and the sleazy bartenders were a little too eager to serve us. So then we left and never went back. I also would not save this nightclub, and honestly would rather save my hometown’s Jamba Juice … that joint got me through middle school.

And that’s such a good point, Justin: We three big-city bloggers did watch this movie with our big-city bias. Before we see the small-town nightclub that might be the heart of Sycamore Creek, we meet our protagonist Ashley (Britt Robertson), who is the star of a festive Off Broadway show in New York City called the Jingle Belles. The movie opens with a Jingle Belles “performance.” Would you have paid for a ticket to see the Jingle Belles? I honestly thought I could have done a better and more festive dance than any of those lackluster Belles. Somehow, the audience is absolutely beaming at them, which means I can only assume they were trapped or coerced into watching this show, like a Shen Yun situation.

Justin: OK, can we talk about how the people behind this movie were just lazily ripping off Stars Hollow? Sycamore Creek? A handsome handyman named Luke? A local diner where everyone is in your business?

Rachelle: I’m gonna admit up front that my first brush with this movie was watching Trixie Mattel and Katya react to it on YouTube, because I watch these videos within 10 minutes of them being posted. During this scene, Katya said, “These are bodies in motion that give us the sense that dance is happening.” Which is to say, those high kicks were not doing it for either of us. I’d feel ripped off if I paid for a Broadway performance and showed up to that boring-ass chorus line.

Justin: The Jingle Belles feels like the type of show you take your parents to if you could not get Rockettes tickets in time, you had already taken them to “Stomp,” and your sense of rhythm comes from watching TikTok dances being recounted on the third hour of the Today Show. It was festive in the way that the holiday aisle at the CVS after midnight in late December is “festive.” Cheap and dreary. Was that dancing? Was that impressive? Were we supposed to feel sad when our protagonist, Ashley, is cut from the show? I was happy for her! Be free! 

Sabrina: I’m obsessed with that, Rachelle: the sense that dance is happening, similar to how this movie was giving the impression of a movie. And yes Justin, when Ashley was fired from the Jingle Belles for becoming, allegedly, too wizened to be a Jingle Belle, I thought she was going to stand up and say her piece to her horrible boss, if not go off on an outright screed about how the theater treats women in their 30s. But Ashley just accepts her firing, and wishes her boss a Merry Christmas. Grow a spine, Ashley! That’s not how a big-city girl would respond to something like this.

Justin: Sabs, she was just a small-town girl living her big-city dreams of dancing in Jingle Belles, which as we all know is a storied institution and obviously pays well all year round in the city of New York. She definitely does not eat street cart hot dogs over her sink while sobbing at night on the regular. 

Sabrina: Definitely not. So it’s only right that Ashley is fated to return to Stars Hollow—I mean, Sycamore Creek—to see her parents for the first time in years.

Rachelle: Can we talk about how the laws of physics apparently work differently in the big city? As soon as Ashley returns, she immediately loses any semblance of proprioception, despite allegedly being a trained dancer. Within 10 minutes of arriving in Sycamore Creek where she grew up, she’s already been tangled up in holly, done a pratfall and smeared cookie frosting all over her face–all in front of (an incredibly well-preserved!) Chad Michael Murray. This movie seems dedicated to humiliating this actress. 

Justin: She is giving TJ Maxx off-the-rack Hayden Panettiere. I don’t know if that’s a good thing.

Sabrina: Maybe it’s like how when astronauts (big-city girls) come back to Earth (Sycamore Creek), their bodies need to adjust from zero gravity (the Jingle Belle lifestyle). And I agree, Ashley’s many spills and smears felt, frankly, like the kinkiest thing about this movie that is ostensibly about male strippers. But we have to talk about Chad Michael Murray. I don’t know what I thought he would look like at 43, but I admit I am impressed! I almost didn’t recognize him in facial hair during his meet-cute with Ashley, where she gets tangled in garlands and then probably experiences a mild concussion that may explain the movie’s subsequent events.

Justin: Chad Michael Murray, another survivor of the WB/UPN/CW era of teen heartthrob television, which feels like it is on brand with so many other actors from our holiday movie series. I am left to wonder if James Van Der Beek has simply decided he is too good for this world. The world would die for a Very Dawson Christmas.

Rachelle: My primary memory of Chad Michael Murray is from the film Freaky Friday, and I low-key feel like this movie might be in the same universe–couldn’t you see Lindsay Lohan wanting to escape the city and then immediately changing her mind? But back to the main point: CMM looks SO GOOD? My muscle-memory crush came back almost immediately.

Justin: Speaking of muscles, congrats to this movie for making sure Chad Michael Murray has his shirt off within like seven minutes of the audience meeting him. Give the people what they want. But I mostly have questions about what was going on with his hair. It was somehow flowy and sultry but also … immobile like a Ken doll?

Sabrina: That’s just the physics of Sycamore Creek for ya.

Rachelle: I was just thinking about the Christmas magic necessary to update the floppy hair of the mid- to late aughts. Whatever they did, I’m here for it. 

Sabrina: When Ashley recovers from her spill, she enters the mythical monument that is The Rhythm Room, her parents’ nightclub. It kind of looks like … a bar, with some bull iconography. I found it somewhat unclear what cultural and/or historical acts had taken place in The Rhythm Room.

Justin: It’s a Texas Roadhouse with a stage built for a middle school talent show.

Rachelle: Texas Roadhouse at least has those bomb-ass rolls. The Rhythm Room is a very cute little dive bar, but a nightclub it is not. I don’t think they fully turned down the lights once? 

Justin: Ashley’s parents! More classic TV actors! Shout out to Aunt Zelda from Sabrina the Teenage Witch and Alex P. Keaton’s dad from Family Ties! They had absolutely nothing to do in this movie other than blindly give approval to their ridiculous daughter’s life choices, but good for them. 

Rachelle: I do question their financial literacy. How have they operated this bar for decades without just buying the commercial space? The entire plot is dependent on their rent being raised by their evil longtime landlord (shout out to the mom from Wizards of Waverly Place) who wants to install a juice bar. But why are they still renting? In Sycamore Creek?

Sabrina: The various industries that power Sycamore Creek were very mysterious to me throughout the movie, as presumably the town is small and yet the town’s ladies have a real surplus of spending money.

Rachelle: OK, that was also wild! You’re telling me you’re going to shake down this small town for $30,000 in less than two weeks? 

Justin: We also need to talk about the fact that they have fallen on hard times because the musicians simply want bigger venues and people can watch music on the TikToks now? In no world are arena-filling bands coming to Sycamore Creek. Also, if you have a ’80s cover band called Ron Jovi playing every Friday night, I am CERTAIN it would do numbers in Sycamore Creek. 

Sabrina: I kept waffling between the idea that Sycamore Creek was like going to be a new Amazon hub and all those ladies were new money, or that they all had inherited generational wealth from murky deeds done in the past. I settled on the latter. I’m betting Chad Michael Murray was doing body rolls for the granddaughters of various coal barons.

After more scenes of Ashley humiliatingly smearing a brown cookie on her face—which her sister, somewhat ghoulishly, does NOT tell her about—she has a heart-to-heart with her sister, who reveals that the surgeon she allegedly dated long ago was not a surgeon but actually a stripper. This sparks an idea for Ashley: The only thing that can save the Rhythm Room from its $30,000 debt is male strippers.

Rachelle: Excuse you, I believe you mean male revue dancers. 

Sabrina: I’m so sorry, thank you for calling me in on this. <3

Rachelle: It’s important for these male revue dancers to be referred to properly, not least because THERE’S NOT A SINGLE ASS CHEEK IN THIS WHOLE MOVIE. 

Justin: Can we talk about how bloodless and anti-horny this whole thing was? The Full Monty, but make it Christmas time in God’s Real America. I was shocked at how little this movie wanted to engage with even the smallest hint of horniness. Was this written by a Goodreads review of BookTok erotica?

Rachelle: I thought I was prepared for how non-horny this movie was after watching Trixie and Katya shred it for its lack of CMM asscheek. I was not. There’s not even a single dollar thrown at these men when they’re doing their little two-step on step, which is a real wasted opportunity if you ask me. 

Sabrina: This movie really blew its load early by showing us Chad Michael Murray’s full abs within the first 20 minutes. Because that set us up for the expectation that we would eventually get to see Chad Michael Murray Ass, Chad Michael Murray Ankle, Chad Michael Murray Bulge. And yet we only received abs, abs, abs, and they expected us to settle for that like we were in high school? I (my parents) am paying for a Netflix subscription, and I expect to see some bulge!

Justin: You gotta subscribe to Chad Michael Murray Max to get bulge. 

Sabrina: I was impressed by the bods of the other Rhythm Room employees that Ashley recruits for the revue. Apparently Sycamore Creek is stacked with six-packs?

Rachelle: One of the few notes I took during this movie besides “CUTE DOG” is “why are these men so ripped?” I recently started competing in powerlifting, which means I’ve also recently internalized just how much work it takes to have that kind of muscle definition. Why is the bartender at the Rhythm Room looking like he just got off a Marvel set? When does he find the time to get in two workouts a day? What protein powder is he buying? 

Justin: Thank GOD the only bartender who works at the Rhythm Room was a semi-retired stripper who left the tighty-whities party boy circuit for the simple life of Sycamore Creek. Similarly, the taxi driver who dropped Ashley off in town, whose perfectly cropped facial hair so clearly tagged him as “former backup dancer who maybe was kicked off tour for a substance abuse problem.” Also, they rope in Ashley’s sister’s husband, who is apparently the only black person living in Sycamore Creek. I fear for him.

Sabrina: Then Ashley’s sister’s husband immediately gets injured and has to drop from the revue, and is replaced by the old guy who does crosswords at the bar. I was going to ask about what y’all thought of the choreography, but first I want to talk about what worker protections these guys had. I was so confused if any of them were making any real money from suddenly becoming full-time exotic dancers. The guy who already worked at the bar is presumably making his bar salary, but Chad Michael Murray appeared to be a contractor? And Crossword Man is a patron? Did they make MORE than $30,000 and the surplus went to cutting them checks? Or were these cut and chiseled men essentially indentured servants for our big-city girl? 

Rachelle: The second option is kind of hot. Let’s go with that one. 

By this point in the movie, I was just letting everything wash over me: the physics of Sycamore Creek, Ashley’s parents lack of financial planning, the way everyone was just looking on as Ashley and Luke fell in love. I will say the moment my disbelief stopped being fully suspended was during the MULTIPLE slow-dance scenes between Ashley and Luke. Listen, I’ve never dated in a small town so maybe it’s a sign of my big-city bias, but how often are people just slow-dancing with their romantic prospects? Am I missing out on something? Should I be teaching my dates how to waltz?

Justin: The degree to which this movie wanted to paint-by-numbers its way into Ashley and Luke having chemistry and falling in love was corny to the point of exhaustion. The point of movies like this is the corniness, but they didn’t even try! Everyone is literally shoving them together like dolls and saying “ooooh, now KISS.”

Sabrina: I loved when one of my favorite Christmas movie tropes emerged in their love story: a man giving his crush the fugliest necklace I have ever seen.

Rachelle: Let’s talk about this. They just met like, what, 10 days ago? And he’s already giving her seasonal jewelry? That’s a huge red flag!

Justin: I was DYING. Then afterward when they go for a walk, Chad Michael Murray asks, “So … do you have a husband? A boyfriend?” My guy. You do this AFTER going to Claire’s at the Sycamore Valley Shoppes By the Creek to get her a necklace?

Rachelle: This is the point where I started to turn against Chad Michael Murray. I know this is a paint-by-numbers movie but the longer my man speaks, the more he fails to give “potential romantic interest.” He hates the city because his fiancee wanted to leave the city for Sycamore Creek and then changed her mind? He could’ve gone back to the city with her! Also he grew up in Chicago? Fuck his family, I guess!

Sabrina: Rachelle, it sounds like you’ve never had big-city trauma, and that’s a privilege.

Rachelle: Excuse you, I lived in New York in spring of 2020 and I still would’ve run screaming for the hills the moment CMM started popping off on me because I got my job back.

Justin: We can’t get ahead of ourselves here. It is important to note that somehow, among this confusingly burgeoning love story, the All-Male Revue is a success, and features a wild-ass montage of their theme nights? How are they affording these costumes? Eighties night! Contract laborer night! Something that looked like “corporate middle manager who shops at Men’s Warehouse” night. Are they learning new moves every night? I was insulted on behalf of choreographers everywhere.

Sabrina: I too wondered this. How long was the revue each night? How many songs? Surely these men could not be learning and performing more than two new songs each night. Except when Ashley shows her festive growth chart, we are seeing MASSIVE revenue gains. We see $9,995 one night, $12,895 the next, $16,095 to $19,595, followed by $23,095. That’s nearly $4,000 made in a single night by a sparse crowd of probably 30 women? So each of these women is earning $116.67, which includes a $30 cover and then, what, several rounds of Goldschlager? Are these the same women returning each night?

Rachelle: Also why do all the numbers end in 5? Is there no tax in this town? Also, can we talk about whatever art critic reviewed this show? 

Justin: As a former small-town newspaper reporter, that was the single thing I found believable in this movie. When the options are the Sycamore Creek Timbersports competition, the high school revival of Oklahoma!, and the grand opening/grand closing of a rendition of The Vagina Monologues, the Merry Gentlemen would easily be the biggest game in town. 

Sabrina: So it’s understandable that when Ashley gets offered her Jingle Belles job back—with a raise!—she wants to return. And I absolutely agree with what Rachelle said earlier: Chad Michael Murray and her whole community in Sycamore Creek basically shame her for wanting her old job back. Where is she gonna get healthcare? Not from the Rhythm Room! Someone there is definitely skimming.

Justin: Her parents once again showed the uncharacteristic chill that got them into this financial predicament when she tells them she wants to leave. How was there not the slightest hint of passive-aggressive support there? “Well, I guess we’ll become homeless and the stripping bartender will be back on the streets shaking ass for tips, but go follow your dream with the Jingle Belles, sweetie.”

Rachelle: Importantly, the Jingle Belles not only offer her a 25 percent raise but a three-year contract. That seems pretty huge, especially if her parents are hard-up for money.

Sabrina: Has anyone here gotten a 25 percent raise?

Rachelle: I’ve gotten a 20 percent raise, followed immediately by one of the bleakest work years of my life, so actually maybe Chad Michael Murray made some points.

Sabrina: While Ashley’s fleeing Sycamore Creek for the airport, absolutely clutching her horrible wreath necklace, the boys are taking the stage in a new theme night—breaking, as popularized by RayGun? But suddenly, Chad Michael Murray take the stage and cuts the music. He has come to understand something about himself: he has performance anxiety and simply CANNOT be sexy without Ashley in the room.

Justin: I love that Ashley has the inevitable revelation that her heart belongs in Sycamore Creek while listening to the most awful, Mountain Dew Code Red of a country Christmas song in the back of a taxi that is somehow stuck in traffic on its way to the regional county airport. On FM radio, love always wins.

Rachelle: I watched this movie in two chunks, saving the last 17 minutes of this film to savor later (I had to catch a flight out of the big city). And I have to say, the last 17 minutes aren’t great. I prefer to live in the reality where these two dummies realize that they actually have a perfect long-distance relationship setup where Ashley goes back to New York for the Christmas season and then choreographs the Merry Gentlemen the rest of the year. Also, did we ever establish where Sycamore Creek is in the country? If it’s just upstate New York, I really don’t know what we’re doing here. 

Justin: Great point. The superimposed mountains always present in the background seemed to want to point out west. But so little made sense of the geography here, especially when the location screamed “suburban Georgia.”

Sabrina: I also wondered this, and ultimately concluded that Sycamore Creek is in one of those third spaces, where the veil between our world and the spirit world is perpetually thin, where Christmas magic can happen.

Rachelle: You’re right, it’s a liminal space. 

Justin: Speaking of the multiverse: We have yet to talk about The Princess Switch crossover/nod in this movie.

Rachelle: The cinematic universe of Netflix Christmas films! 

Sabrina: Another universe full of liminal spaces! I liked that Netflix knew this was not a good enough movie to tease a clip of The Princess Switch or a LiLo movie. That’s another caliber of universe.

Rachelle: I appreciate your optimism, but I’d place at least $10 on there being a sequel for this next year. 

Sabrina: Oh no. Like the audience shackled to their seats at the Jingle Belles performance, we too will be contractually obligated to watch it.

Justin: Of course there will be a sequel. All they did was raise the money to pay back rent and taxes! Then they had the audacity to say We love a landlord, please join us for a Christmas turkey, like the landlord had some Ebenezer Scrooge-style epiphany thanks to seeing Chad Michael Murray’s abs! They are powerful, but not THAT powerful.

Rachelle: If these bitches don’t buy the bar with all this money they’re getting, they deserve to be evicted.