Our Little Secret Parent Guide

Avery (Lindsay Lohan) and Logan (Ian Harding) have been inseparable since childhood, first as friends and then as a couple. In her twenties, Avery is given an opportunity to move to London for a job, which leads to a messy split from Logan. Ten years later, the two have moved on with their lives and both have new partners who have invited them home for Christmas. There they have an unwelcome seasonal surprise: Avery’s boyfriend and Logan’s girlfriend are siblings.

To avoid the inevitable awkwardness, Avery and Logan decide to hide their past and pretend they’ve never met. But hiding their past proves to be more difficult than expected as new sparks are ignited and family secrets come to light.

It looks like Netflix has nailed the formula for Christmas rom-coms. Their new strategy of casting millennial nostalgia-inducing leads in films built on silly premises and heaps of genre tropes has worked on me and, based on the breakroom chatter at my office, a lot of other women in my age range. Lindsay Lohan was a huge part of my childhood, and it’s so fun to see her in these types of films again. She’s pleasantly perky and has fabulous chemistry with Ian Harding. The real star of this film, however, is Kristin Chenoweth as the snobby mother-in-law, who steals every scene she’s in.

The script for Our Little Secret isn’t doing anything new, but it does the expected exceptionally well. The characters have motivations and personality, and Avery and Logan actually make sense as a couple. I wish this wasn’t something I had to point out, but you’d be surprised at how often movie couples have nothing in common. The story is clichéd and you know exactly how it’s going to end from minute one, but it’s still a fun journey to go on, especially because these characters are more than just one-dimensional stereotypes. Avery and Logan are both flawed people who make mistakes, but they grow and learn both together and apart, which is refreshingly healthy.

The TV-14 rating and this film’s relatively poor grade on our website are primarily due to marijuana use. Social drinking is par for the course in most productions, but this story features brief drunkenness as well as an extended scene of a stoned main character, which is a bit more than we would expect to see in a light-hearted seasonal rom-com. The sexual content is shockingly low for this genre, which I appreciated. Though not appropriate for family viewing, I think many adult audiences will enjoy this flick for its better-than-average writing and fun performances. It sure got me in the holiday spirit, and that’s all I can ask.