movies

Calling it: "Stan Original Film Christmas on the Farm is my new favourite festive flick."

Now I don't want to be bold and say that I'm a Christmas movie connoisseur... but I also don't want to lie to you all.

Because I am. 

I've watched them all - the good, the bad, and the goofy. I turn them on outside of the festive season, craving not just a subtle jingle of joy, but an extreme amount of happiness designed to hit you like a snowball to the face.

Psst! Have a listen to the latest episode of The Spill, Mamamia's daily pop culture podcast, right here. Post continues after audio.

The key ingredients of a Christmas movie winner, in my not-so-humble opinion, are as follows: A quaint setting, a PG-13 level of romance, hilarious auxiliary characters, a few pets, and, of course, snow.

That last one is definitely reminiscent of my childhood, where I had many white Christmases back in Blighty. For that reason the perfect Christmas scene to me features mittens, hot chocolate, make-shift sleighs, and lots and lots of fluffy white snow.

But I've had to spend the last seven Decembers, after moving to Australia, adjusting to the exact opposite of that. 

Stinking hot Christmas days and swapping gravy-laden lunches for... prawns?! Still very weird to me.

But now that I have no plans to return to the northern hemisphere, I know I really need to wrap my head around Christmas down under. This is why when I first saw the trailer for Christmas on the Farm, I knew it was just the festive therapy I needed.

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You can watch the trailer for Christmas on the Farm right here. Post continues after video.


Video via Stan.

The film swings straight into things with the lead, Emmy (played by Poppy Montgomery), arriving in Australia for her mum's funeral. 

A sobering plot point, but stay with me, it gets jollier. It is a Christmas movie after all!

You see, Emmy is a writer based in New York who is working on a book that she desperately needs to sell in order to keep her mum's Australian farm. It's where Emmy grew up, it's stuffed full of memories of her mum, and her best mate (played by Hugh Sheridan) and his husband live there, so I guess she doesn't want to make them... homeless?

Anywho, back in the Big Apple Emmy is in panic mode about what to write when she comes across her mum's journals. She then knocks back a couple of shots of vodka and seemingly converts these journals into a whole memoir manuscript in one night. 

A talent I would love to one day have, please and thank you.

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Her manager says she's a fan of the book, but it needs a little more of a personal touch. In a twist that I'm pretty sure verges on some sort of identity fraud, her manager suggests she edit the story to make it not about her mum, but about her. Effectively turning Emmy into her mother, Clementine.

After she sends her edited book off to her manager, she heads out for a couple of cheeky bevvies and meets a charming man with a confusing New-York-sudo-Scottish accent and stubble you just want to stroke. And that she does! Along with going back to his house for a very grown-up sleepover. 

Image: Stan. 

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Fast-forwarding a few days, Emmy gets a call from her manager letting her know that a fancy-pants publishing house wants her book, and that they are willing to pay, wait for it, $1 million for it.

...But there's one condition: The aforementioned fancy-pants publisher will only sign once they've spent Christmas with Clementine. At the farm. In Australia.

And this, my festive friends, is where the chaos begins.

Emmy is forced to stage a faux-farm life, wrangle her best friend's husband into pretending to be her husband, recruit a local kid to play her daughter and somehow prove to the publishers that this is all legit. 


Image: Stan. 

Obviously there are a heap of twists, turns and slapstick laugh-out-loud moments dotted throughout - and a few excellent dresses that I will be adding to my shopping list. 

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But what I was really drawn to was the honest, glorious portrayal of Christmas in Australia. 

There were bright blue sky days, quaint rural town fairs, an op-shop makeover montage, a couple of cows, a handful of horses and even a vegemite cameo.

The whole thing felt authentic. And before you call me out on it, I know this is wildly ironic coming from a movie about a woman who has conjured up a completely fake life, but just watch it and you'll totally get what I'm saying.

Give it a go and report back to me in the comments. Because I bet you one ice-cold tinnie that the Stan Original Film Christmas on the Farm will be your new favourite festive flick too. 

The Stan Original Film Christmas on the Farm is now streaming, only on Stan. 

Feature Image: Stan + Mamamia. 

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