Lindsay Lohan’s ‘Falling for Christmas’ is Proof of Hollywood’s Dehumanizing Effects

When Oprah Winfrey took Lindsay Lohan under her wing in 2014, I was certain that the troubled starlet would return to her rightful place among the Hollywood elite. Nearly a decade later, Lohan’s comeback may finally be close.

Her recent, gentle rumblings in popular consciousness – debuting her single ‘Back to Me’ in 2020 after a 12-year hiatus from music; starting her podcast The Lohdown with Lindsay Lohan (2022) – have fallen short of a full-blown return. However, they’ve at least created momentum for her new Netflix movie Falling for Christmas (2022), in which Lohan plays hotel heiress Sierra Belmont, who develops amnesia following a skiing accident and eventually becomes more grounded and independent under the care of widowed small-towner and single parent Jake Russell (Chord Overstreet).

It’s a familiar and overdone formula: we witness Belmont’s moral metamorphosis as signalled by her learning to make a bed; Russell’s young daughter wishing for her father to find love again; and Belmont and Russell stumbling under a mistletoe, eventually falling for each other while trying to save his family’s business. Lohan is at her most charming in the first quarter of the film though, when her character is still zany, spoiled and dressed in show-stopping fashion.

Once Belmont loses her memory, Lohan’s on-screen glow begins to dim until it is snuffed out completely by increasingly lazy writing and lacklustre performances from the rest of the cast. Despite this, reviews have been gentle and interviews enthusiastic for Lohan’s return to acting, striving to overlook the dismal material she was left to salvage and transform into something remotely entertaining. It’s less a triumphant comeback and more a depressing reminder of how far the former child star has fallen and the now-limited opportunities within her reach. In a way, the film’s overly warm reception parallels the storyline’s seemingly happy ending – both, upon a closer viewing, reveal there isn’t actually much to applaud.

Within the first five minutes of Falling for Christmas, we gain insight on the character arc Belmont’s story should follow when she exclaims: ‘I need to make my own mark in the world.’ Meanwhile, her father has invented for her the position of Vice President of Atmosphere of his resort, and her social media-obsessed fiancé pushes her towards the world of online influencers. Ultimately, she musters the courage to end her engagement and decline the comfy job, but is no closer to her aspiration than before.

Even though she regains her memory, she still lacks a complete sense of self, exclusively developing domestic skills, such as cleaning and cooking, instead. The movie concludes with Belmont and Russell sharing their first kiss after she volunteers to help him run his snow lodge and secure a business investment from her father. Although she removes herself from the influence of her father and her former fiancé, she finds her life unwittingly shaped by that of another man.

This is Belmont’s supposed happy ending after learning her moral lesson, though it’s never clear what sins she was meant to atone for. When compared with the wealth-hoarding protagonist of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol (1843), for example, Belmont is endearing and even tantalizing in her cluelessness – more humorous bimbo than exploitative villain. Just as we witnessed Lohan’s struggle growing up under the scornful public eye, so we watch Belmont stumble completing chores at Russell’s resort while attempting to piece together her identity.

Perhaps Falling for Christmas and its positive media buzz is Lohan’s reward for completing her own transformation. Recent interviews have painted her as guarded but humble – a stark contrast to the tabloid rumours in years past of her entitled diva behaviour on set. But to place the blame for her declined celebrity solely on Lohan and her immaturity as a late teen would be dishonest, especially in our current collective moment of recognizing the invasive, sexist and dehumanizing treatment inflicted by adults upon burgeoning Hollywood starlets in the 2000s. After the entertainment industry has profited from the spectacle of tearing down Lohan’s career and personal character, subpar roles and press junkets in which she reperforms glimmers of her past glory are hardly fair rectification. Like Belmont, she is worthy of so much more.

In an episode of the 2014 documentary series Lindsay on the Oprah Winfrey Network, Lohan said: ‘Every day I’m not on a film set, I’m wasting my talent.’ But Falling for Christmas – in its refusal to meet her halfway – is evidence that, even in such an environment, Lohan’s potential can still wither.

_{Main image: Falling for Christmas, 2022, film still. Courtesy: Scott Everett White and Netflix}