Rating: NR | Runtime: 88 minutes
Release Date: December 2nd, 2022 (USA)
Studio: RLJE Films / AMC+
Director(s): Clare Niederpruem
Writer(s): Vince Vaughn, Dan Lagana & Barbara Kymlicka

It feels right to be here.

Leave it to Vince Vaughn to take the well-worn tropes of your usual Hallmark Christmas movie and drag them through the sex-crazed innuendo of a horny teenager growing up in the 1990s.

Christmas with the Campbells, co-written and produced by the actor, is pretty much exactly that. Brittany Snow’s Jesse dodges a bullet when Alex Moffat’s Shawn breaks up with her days before the holiday (to help facilitate a new opportunity for “bigger and better” in NYC), but his parents (Julia Duffy and George Wendt) decide to invite her to their quaint little town to celebrate anyway because they consider her part of the family. She meets their rugged nephew David (Justin Long speaking in hokum metaphors Elaine Benes would have written for the J. Peterman Catalog) and starts falling in love just when Shawn suddenly appears unannounced.

It plays out exactly how you’d think, complete with JoAnna Garcia Swisher’s Becky diverting both men’s eyes with her “tasty treats.” Jesse gets to hear everyone air their dirty sex laundry; Duffy and Wendt are forced to say “purple drank,” “lean,” and “sizzurp” unironically in the same sequence (when not talking about their overactive libidoes); and we’re reminded how some people will never understand that comedic trends evolve.

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[L-R] Brittney Snow as “Jesse,” and Justin Long as “David” in the romantic comedy, CHRISTMAS WITH THE CAMPBELLS, an AMC+ and RLJE Films release. Photo courtesy of AMC+ and RLJE Films.