This is the time of year when the best, biggest, and most ambitious movies come out. Not Oscar season, but rather that stretch when the halls of streaming services are decked with the brightly lit, thinly disguised advertisements that are the year's new Christmas movies. There are more than 100 new Christmas films to watch this holiday season, and whether that number horrifies or excites you depends upon how much of a freak you are for the festive. Sabrina is proud to say they are a real Christmas freak, and this year they asked some of their colleagues to watch some of the most, uh, available new holiday movies. The second movie in our lineup is Christmas in the Spotlight, Lifetime's adaptation of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce's real-life romance.
Sabrina Imbler: Thank you so much for joining me in watching what might be the celebrity singer-celebrity athlete Christmas rom-com movie of the season. I came into this movie knowing a lot about Christmas, but relatively little about the real-life stars that inspired this movie. I would love to know how each of you started this journey. What are your relationships to Travis and Taylor and their love connection?
Dan McQuade: I watch enough NFL that I have learned a lot about their relationship through osmosis. When they launched I immediately thought of how similar NFL and Taylor Swift fans are: They both wear costumes (jerseys, sparkly outfits) to football stadiums, they both exchange gifts (beers, friendship bracelets), they get into overexcited trances while there (touchdowns, the surprise song Taylor does at each show). Last summer in Wildwood Crest, New Jersey, I saw the cover band Swiftie and the Midnights and it was fun! I especially liked seeing how much the crowd loved it, as if it were a show by the real Taylor. She also has a cat named Olivia Benson, and our cat is named Detective John Munch! My wife and I would have a great conversation opener if we ever met Taylor. I think my cat deserves a Wikipedia page, too.
Alex Sujong Laughlin: I've become increasingly ambivalent about Taylor Swift in recent years, but I would still consider myself a fan. I went to the Eras Tour last year, and I am deeply familiar with the lore and conspiracy theories entwined with her music and fandom. A lot of my family is from Kansas and are big Chiefs fans, but I don't care at all about football. I really loved watching them roll out their relationship last year though because it was SO BIG. I'm a fan of big exciting things happening in culture, but I don't really have anything else to say about their relationship because they are two humans I do not know.
Kelsey McKinney: I think I've seen every live Taylor Swift tour except RED, which I missed because I was studying abroad, and I've also always been a football fan, though not always of the NFL. I feel like in many ways, this is flyover state culture (the biggest pop stars, the biggest sports stars, everything consumed by as many people as possible) and that is where I was raised. That said, I (like Dan but with less credibility) am an Eagles fan, so I only care about Jason Kelce, and I care mostly about Taylor Swift the way I imagine some people care about new snakes at the zoo. I'm very interested in what she's doing and why she does it, and how strategic she is, but she is a stranger, and I have no real feelings about her.
SI: I am definitely someone who cares about new snakes at the zoo, although I wish they got more fanfare than freaking penguins, who are great, but have had more than their share of the spotlight. And I'm honored to be in a room with all this expertise, across Taylor lore and the other Kelce brother. I was curious how faithfully y'all feel this movie portrays Taylor and Travis as people. Obviously they had to change names—hence the jarringly Y-heavy Bowyn Sykes (Taylor) and the less memorable Drew "Gonzo" Gonville (Travis)—but I wondered how else the characters were mapped onto these real famous people. When there was a significant scene on Bowyn's private jet, I was like, wow, that's so Taylor!
DM: It took me 16 minutes into the movie to discover the characters' names. I could only see them as Taylor and Travis. I did like how the movie just opens in media res with Sykes singing on top of a moon that reminded me of Mac Tonight. More movies need to skip the overhead establishing shot and go right into the film. More movies need Mac Tonight. I would like it if they named the characters earlier, though.
ASL: I think the most bizarre part of watching this movie was that it was a chance to see the Taylor Swift universe through a bizarro lens, like when you look at your bedroom upside down. There are scenes of Bowyn dancing and singing that are like royalty-free versions of Taylor Swift songs you might use for a low-budget commercial. That, mixed with the cultural lore that exists around Bowyn in the movie's universe in parallel to what exists in ours—"Swifties" are "Arrows," the jokes about the ex-boyfriends, the friendship bracelets—had a sort of funhouse mirror effect for me where I was like "Damn, is that what all this looks like from the outside?" I don't get the impression that the movie was actually written by Swifties (though, does it matter?), but rather by someone who had a big list of quotes and tropes they needed to work into the script, no matter how awkward. I lost my mind every time a character would work a Taylor Swift song title into dialogue. "I parked on the street and came 'Out of the Woods.'"
SI: My favorite one of those lines was when Bowyn declared she was "never really a cheerleader type, more of a bleacher girl." It felt like when my mom is trying to remember a celebrity's name but just butchers it over and over until she approximates it in mouthfeel but everything has lost its meaning.
ASL: DEAR GOD.
DM: The football in Christmas in the Spotlight seems to have been written by someone with just a passing interest in the game. The movie features a brother, the team's quarterback, but he's not much of a Jason Kelce analogue at all. One of the film's ongoing threads is how Gonzo is somehow underpaid and less famous than his brother Rob "Golden" Gonville.
But the film also posits that Gonzo is in a bunch of commercials, which would make him at least as well-known as Travis Kelce or Jake from State Farm. "He's only the best wide receiver in the world," Bowyn’s manager says. "Nine-time MVP. He owns the longest record for yards receiving." A wide receiver being nine-time MVP is odd enough (The NFL record is five, held by Peyton Manning. Michael Jordan only won five, too!). But that, combined with his presence in many commercials, would make him the most famous athlete in the country. It would make him a legendary sports figure, one of the all-time greats in any sport. And yet he takes a new contract to leave the Bay Springs Bombers for the LA Stars mid-season that would "double his salary." It's not all bad, though. The name Bowyn Sykes must've been picked so the film could make her fans Arrowheads, a reference to the Chiefs' Arrowhead Stadium. A fun, unavoidable feature of the film happens when Gonzo catches a touchdown in an extra-large end zone, which means this was filmed on a Canadian football field. That, plus the accents, makes this movie …
I would like the opportunity to punch up any sort of football script Lifetime options in the future. I would work cheap; a case of Clearly Canadian might do it. Another enjoyable moment: The field the team plays in is very clearly Yankee Stadium with "National Corners Stadium" CGI'd onto the outside.
KM: The most incredible part of this movie is that Bowyn is literally a better dancer than Taylor on stage. But what I found interesting about the portrayal is the struggle the movie had with understanding what this level of fame is actually like. They wanted us to believe that Bowyn was the biggest star in the world, and also that she was being dragged online for having come from a talent competition (Carrie Underwood core), and also that someone would be able to sneak back stage at her concert by just tapping on a security guard's shoulder (impossible), and that she wouldn't have security on her at all times but would have a private jet. In many ways, this is a delusion. It's fan fiction. Because they were so desperate to have this be Taylor-And-Travis Core they lost the ability to make anything interesting. Sabrina, I'm really interested in what your perception of this movie was as someone not locked-in on this couple.
SI: That's such a good point Kelsey. Every time Bowyn and her fun and hot Asian manager bff, Mira Vu, gabbed, totally un-accosted, in what looked like a mid-tier brunch spot I really lost the fantasy. As someone who knows little about these people, I kind of felt like I was watching any other ambiently acted Lifetime Christmas movie—two cardboard people with the personalities of a Panera muffin. (I should also say that the actress who played Bowyn looked exactly like Kaylor from Love Island USA, so by the end of the movie I had melded the actress and the pop star into one entity: Kaylor Swift.) But every time those references to their real-world counterparts pierced through, it was quite jarring—a reminder of the amount of lore that was totally going over my head. Like it took me most of the movie to realize that Bowyn's ex-boyfriend was supposed to be a pastiche of Jake Gyllenhaal? And that made me wonder, is Mira Vu supposed to be anyone? Does Taylor have Asian friends?
KM: I think Mira Vu is supposed to be a Tree Paine (her publicist, who is a white woman with red hair who is older than her) type. She definitely does not exist in the real world. I think this movie was probably red-lined by legal to death before they shot it. So they couldn't meet at the concert and her just like him. There had to be some other motivation, which is why the manager was involved? But early on the manager says this conspiracy theory that does exist that Taylor is only dating Travis to get the NFL halftime show (which is dumb and wrong. She hasn't done that because of sponsorships), and that just … never came back in the plot.
ASL: Sorry, I think you mean "The Big Game."
SI: So when Bowyn invites Gonzo for a first date, he is essentially kidnapped into a sleek black car and given a duffel bag containing a Santa costume (one of the movie's extremely forced references to Christmas). I was kind of excited about this, and I was wondering if maybe Taylor/Bowyn was into some kinky Santa shit and they would do some age-play making out. But it turns out it was just a ruse to help Gonzo stay under the radar from all the paparazzi.
ASL: This is a direct reference to the fact that Taylor Swift allegedly wears wigs and other disguises to go out in public sometimes to avoid being accosted by paparazzi. Again though, absolutely wild in the context of the movie because she's able to gab about her love life over brunch with her manager. God forbid she's seen with a—gasp—man!
DM: They have a conspicuous brunch in the same spot several times. There is one scene where people behind them are pointing, but you'd think by then it would be known as her spot and fans would be lining up outside to catch a glimpse. The restaurant doesn't even give her any special treatment. Her asshole ex just grabs a chair from another table and slides up to harangue her about getting back together. How did they just let a guy, even a famous one, saddle up to her table and steal her food?
SI: Why didn't Bowyn dress up as Santa to have a mano a mano make out with Gonzo! That would have been fun and vaguely homoerotic in a way that could titillate the Gaylors.
DM: Besides the Santa suit, the movie takes about 70 minutes of its 90 minute runtime to get Christmasy.
ASL: Before we move on, I would like to quickly note that the woman playing our Kylie Kelce character, Rob's wife Nicole, is played by influencer Haley Kalil, most well known for going viral earlier this year with her "let them eat cake" video outside the Met Gala. I screamed when she came on screen the first time.
KM: Yeah, this was crazy to me because this woman is extremely famous online. So instantly when she appeared I had the strange confusion where I was like, "Are you a TikTok star or did we go to high school together or is it both?" She has millions of followers, so I'm not really sure why she did this! But it was jarring to have her in these scenes where she is clearly a better and more subtle actress than the lead! Also I just want to say as a Jason Kelce fan, that it is offensive and rude to me to make his character knock-off shorter than Gonzo.
SI: I did not know who that woman was but this additional context is great. I was fixated on her hair, which, like the hair of anyone in any movie or TV show these days, was done in beachy waves. Beachy waves here, beachy waves there. In the Lifetime movie universe, anyone who does not have beachy waves is shot on sight! Also in the Lifetime movie universe, no one can swear, leading to frequent expressions of "Oh my gosh," and "Let's freaking go!"
DM: There are paparazzi images of Princess Diana wearing an Eagles jacket. She even wore it on the cover of People. It's so famous in Philadelphia there is an incredible urban legend about it. (I debunked the tale last year.) There is an immeasurable amount of bootleg merchandise with these Princess Di images. But recently I saw someone peddling a t-shirt with a photo of Kylie Kelce in a replica of the same jacket. In Philadelphia, Kylie Kelce is now Diana-level famous.
SI: As Bowyn and Gonzo begin to fall for each other, they encounter various trials and tribulations, like vengeful ex-boyfriends starting shit.
ASL: Oh my GOD, can we talk about the fake Kanye phone call?
KM: Wait. Alex, explain.
ASL: When Bowyn's ex boyfriend leaked a recorded conversation with them where she sarcastically says she's dating Gonzo for good PR and to sell more albums. That video is all over the news and Gonzo freaks out and they break up, leaving Bowyn to claim, "I did say that but it was edited to make it sound worse than it was!!" It's a clear reference to the Kanye "Famous" music video debacle (an exhaustive timeline if you need it) and reinforced the movie's stance that Bowyn/Taylor is just an innocent girl with a pure heart who loves to sing in a mean, mean world.
DM: I had stopping paying attention to anything but Kanye's music by The Life of Pablo. But it was clear, even without remembering this incident, that she was going to get double-crossed by her ex with a selectively-edited video. The movie was absurdly predictable, but I appreciated that the script flowed relatively logically from beat to beat. I've seen major films that make way less sense. They usually know more about football, though.
KM: The whole movie I was kind of reeling with how good the pandemic was for Taylor Swift. Somehow being unable to stop working and then going on a mammoth tour really has rewritten almost all of the stuff she has ever done in her favor. The movie really operates under the assumption that Taylor Swift …sorry, Bowyn … is low-key miserable as a famous person because she is just a normal girl who no one understands, which is just great marketing for someone who is literally a billionaire and flies her private plane more than I drive my car.
SI: OMG Kelsey that is the context that surely led to my absolute favorite line of the whole movie, which happens when Bowyn is looking through old photo albums of Gonzo and she says she finds them beautiful because of, and I quote, "the normality of it all."
KM: It's really funny to imagine a world in which a major pop star (all of whom spend 90 percent of their time in their own houses because they can't go anywhere) would be thrilled by the idea of staying inside a house and not going anywhere.
ASL: She's just a normal girl who loves puzzles and baking!
DM: I was so confused by the puzzle scene. Two years ago I read an article titled "The Troubling Puzzles of Karly." My wife and I liked it so much we did one of the puzzles, Still Life #24. My wife and I worked as a team to piece together the puzzle of Tom Wesselmann's painting, and we celebrated together once we finished. But Bowyn and Gonzo appear to be "playing" the puzzle like it's a board game. They are competing over who can place the final piece, which to me seems like a game with a huge loophole (simply hide one piece in your pocket until the end). Is this how people put together puzzles in the universe of this film? How did this tradition begin? When they can't find the final piece, who wins? I need a movie on the puzzle scene in the Bowyn/Gonzo world.
SI: This movie also hammered into us that not only is Bowyn a normal girl, she's a really, really, really good person. There's this whole storyline around her performing at a hospital for children with cancer, which I couldn't tell if this was a Taylor thing or a Lifetime movie thing.
ASL: Yeah, Bowyn's character is like comically flat in how good-hearted she is. This is already asking way too much of a Lifetime movie, but I would've been so interested in a version of this that has her actually engaging with how this relationship would help her career, as it has helped Taylor Swift's. There are two versions of Taylor in pop culture: the innocent one and the savvy one. The savvy one sells the image of the innocent one, but I have always found the savvy more compelling as a pop cultural figure. I'm not sure that any Lifetime movie character has that kind of complexity though.
SI: If you're a complex female character, you do not deserve love at Christmastime!
Excuse the broad question, but did y'all enjoy watching this movie? Was it a good experience?
ASL: I enjoyed watching this movie like I enjoy Halloween candy: bad for me but so delicious. Thank you, I'd like more.
DM: I took 1,461 words of notes to prepare for this blog. Of course I enjoyed watching this movie.
KM: I "liked" watching this movie in the same way I "like" watching one-on-one dates on The Bachelor, which is essentially what this whole thing was. I felt insane the whole time I was watching it and it was great to shit talk about. I watched it with a friend and we had a really fun time asking the hard questions like: Why would she think she could give a toast at someone else's family Thanksgiving? Why does the framed puzzle not have glass on it? Why does he think it's normal to tell his mom about a girl after the first date?
SI: If my rich football boyfriend gave me a single puzzle piece for Christmas—deviously disguised inside of a NECKLACE BOX—I would simply have to flip the coffee table!
And Alex, you're actually in luck, because Dan learned that there's a second NFL-inspired Christmas romance movie coming out next week.
ASL: Let's FREAKING go.
