Ah yes, the impending holiday season, where Christmas movies that focus on heteronormative nuclear families reign, and queer folks are once again reminded that they don't fit into the mainstream narrative of perfect family dynamics in real life and in film. But not on Netflix's watch! Just a year after Hulu premiered Happiest Season, a queer Christmas trope that inevitably just fell a bit short plot wise, Netflix has decided to tap into the need for an expanded holiday viewpoint, and will premiere Single All The Way just in time for Christmas.
Starring Ugly Betty’s Michael Urie, Single All The Way follows a man desperate to not endure another Christmas holiday as the “single” member of his family. Urie plays Peter, the aforementioned single man who “persuades his best friend Nick to come home for the holidays and engage in a little fake dating to appease his Christmas-loving, ‘you should be in a relationship!’-nagging family,” Entertainment Weekly notes. The only issue, is that “Peter's mother, Carole, is planning to set him up on a blind date with her spin instructor, James, and all bets are off. Also in the mix: single Aunt Sandy.” Sounds like the old "protagonist falls in love with his best friend while they are pretend together and then something goes wrong" trope, and we love to see it.
Premiering on December 2, Urie star alongside Hocus Pocus legend Kathy Najimy as Carole, would you believe, our queen Jennifer Coolidge as Aunt Sandy. Love interest James will be played by Brothers & Sisters’ Luke Macfarlane. On the note of Coolidge, which is undoubtedly the gayest part of the movie (we can say this confidently without having watched the film or the trailer), Urie confirmed he is equally as thrilled at the casting.
“Never have you witnessed a town Christmas Pageant cast with children, written/produced/directed by and starring Jennifer Coolidge,” Urie warned. “It’s the gayest thing to happen since Mariah!” he said.
Urie described his own character as “a self-described ‘plant gay’” and “the kind of Guncle who has spent many Christmases perfecting choreography to a Britney Spears Christmas song with his nieces.” And honestly, same. According to the actor, Peter is “trapped in a social media job he doesn’t love.” he told EW. As for the film,“You can expect pageantry, wine, hunky Santas, a little bit of deception, a whole lotta do-gooding, and Jennifer Coolidge.” He noted, “Like any good Christmas movie, there will be decorating, there will be mistletoe, there will be sleeveless panel.”
Okay! Enough said, Christmas is going camp and we are on board.
