Holiday in the Wild (2019)

★

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Jilted by her husband on the eve of embarking on an African safari, a woman travels to the continent alone where she meets an elephant conservationist.

Classification: PG

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Gather round readers cause now that the pumpkins are rotting in your front lawn and the stores are filled with discount Halloween candy and hungover mall Santas do you know what that means?

YES! IT'S TERRIBLE CHRISTMAS MOVIE SEASON!!!

It’s that time of the year… forget Thanksgiving and get ready for terrible terrible Christmas films complete with schlock and awful premises and not even missing a beat Netflix is right out of the gate with Holiday in the Wild. Absolutely terrible in concept and execution nothing about Ernie Barbarash's romantic comedy is worthwhile except for the elephants. Going for the most cliché concepts of romance and comedy, the film doesn't even have a driving conflict in the plot, everything just feels so artificial on an emotional level. There is no real focus to the story either, as it doesn't deliver a gripping romance between Rob Lowe and Kristin Davis or holiday spirit, Barbarash's direction is just roaming between inconsequential scenes and B-Roll of an elephant sanctuary.

Thank God for the elephants as the majestic creatures are the only saving grace to Holiday in the Wild but again their inclusion feels superficial and cynical. The filmmakers believe by including references to poaching, the ivory trade, and the many dangers elephants face the film feels it has relevance but its still artistically hollow. Nothing is authentic, the film doesn't feel otherworldly because it creates this fairytale dream of travelling to another country and rediscovering yourself through love but because it doesn't seem bound by reality. The film feels like a product made by alien or one of those AI's that has endlessly consumed Hallmark movies and this what it has all been building towards. Perhaps Holiday in the Wild is the offspring of Netflix's own algorithm, that in the overabundance of their content cascade it has led to these films becoming randomly generated with no real human input. The future won't be robots taking over the world through violence but instead by mass-producing terrible holiday films that no one wants to stream.

It's embarrassing to watch and you can feel Rob Lowe both count the seconds until the Netflix cheque clears and contemplate every decision he made that led him to star in Holiday in the Wild. Lowe is supposed to be the rugged frontiersman complete with Indiana Jones fedora, open-collared shirts and five o clock shadow and I guess he is but he's just a walking caricature like the rest of the film. Since Lowe flies a plane and lives in a tent he understands how to appreciate life better than Kristin Davis' character who is dealing with her son going off the college and her husband filing for divorce; classic mid-life crisis. Davis doesn't fare any better in the film but she is clearly having a more enjoyable time than Lowe because most of her scenes have her interacting with baby elephants. Their romance is tacked on as the two actors have no chemistry between each other and their courtship either on screen has no notable moments and just makes watching the film even more awkward.

The technical execution to Holiday in the Wild is just as abysmal with flat cinematography and comical editing choices that undercut any dramatic or emotional weight. Although filmed on-site at an elephant sanctuary there are still moments when everything just feels fake either by using green screen or the emptiness of the set design. Halfway through the film, Christmas decorations are pinned up because I guess this was supposed to be a film about Christmas or holiday spirit? It doesn't really have a bearing on the plot, but then nothing really does. Everything is fine within the universe of this film and if there is a problem it is literally solved in the next scene, Davis' character doesn't necessarily have a white saviour complex but it has the same uneasy message that only rich people can solve problems.

Holiday in the Wild is just the latest example of Netflix's inconsistent and frustrating content strategy, wanting to both be prestige award winner and bottom-feeding junk hustler. The blank cheque should just have been committed to making a documentary about an elephant sanctuary since the film slaps on a postscript about elephant survival statistics and the importance of conservation efforts. It's just the most shallow attempt to make a cheap piece of entertainment have importance when all it does is trivialise the issue because of how inferior the actual film is. Elephants are important and Barbarash thinks that by cramming in this extensive issue with no real ramifications to his faded, terrible Hallmark reject rom-com that he's making some kind of difference. The film doesn't hurt anyone or the cause but there are far better ways to approach this material then to use it as window dressing for cheesy unrealistic storytelling.

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Director: #ErnieBarbarash

Cast: #RobLowe, #KristinDavis

Release Date: November 1st 2019

Available exclusively on Netflix

Trailer:

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Written review copyright ©CoreyBullochReviews

Images and Synopsis from the Internet Movie Database