First of all, this movie's title is just bad. It just doesn't sound good. The word junkie is a negatively-loaded word, and it leads to substance abuse associations, so I don't know what the people that came up with the title were thinking.
Of course I had never even heard about the movie prior to watching it, but I figured that it would be a run-of-the-mill generic sappy Christmas movie, as it had Jennifer Love Hewitt in the leading role, but also as writer and director.
The storyline in the movie was fair enough. I mean, it was generic and writers Jennifer Love Hewitt and Anna White do place their money on safe bets, cashing in on many of the archetypical sappy Christmas tropes. But hey, if you enjoy generic Christmas movies covered in sap, then you're in for a treat. There was a scene where the characters were playing a game of sharing worst Christmas experiences, which felt somewhat out of place, as it was a somewhat depressing and mood-killing scene, but on the other hand it does add some background to the characters instead of them being one-dimensional Christmas cardboard cut-outs that you could take out of one sappy Christmas movie and easily replace in another sappy Christmas movie.
I was only familiar with Jennifer Love Hewitt and Greg Grunberg on the cast list. The acting performances in the movie were fair.
"The Holiday Junkie" is most definitely not going to become a Christmas classic. And personally, then I will never return to watch it a second time. There are far better and more enjoyable sappy Christmas movies out there.
My rating of director Jennifer Love Hewitt's 2024 movie "The Holiday Junkie" lands on a four out of ten stars.
