In both anticipated or unexpected ways, great art can inspire, comfort, and heal. And sometimes bad art can serve exactly the same purpose — especially when we’re in desperate need of a laugh. So, this holiday weekend, we give extra thanks to the Lifetime Channel for Christmas in the Spotlight, a made-for-cable movie about a blond, super-successful, stadium-filling pop star and the football star she becomes entangled with. If that plot conjures a certain real-life pop star and a specifc actual athlete, you would be correct. But you don’t have to be a Swiftie or a Kansas City Chiefs diehard to revel in the roughly 812 comically ridiculous ways the movie brazenly cops from the Tay-and-Kelce story.
In the 90-minute Christmas in the Spotlight, which debuted last weekend and is streaming now, Jessica Lord stars as Bowyn Sykes (check out the “y” in the first name), while Laith Wallschleger is buff but doughy-inside football player Drew “Gonzo” Gonville. Prone to writing pop songs with choruses like “Even in the darkest night, I’m gonna shine, shine, shine,” Bowyn is still recovering from relationships with what her iron-willed manager, Mira Vu (winkingly modeled on Swift’s real-life spokesperson?), calls “pretentious actors and indie rockers.” Bowyn all but validates that criticism early on when she films a video for her holiday song “Alone at Christmas.” Mira considers it a bummer. “It’s not a downer,” Bowyn counters. “It’s empowering. I’m literally singing about how I don’t need a man to make me happy.” Take that, male species!
The nods and lifts only grow more audacious after that; there are enough Easter eggs here for multiple farms. At Mira’s urging, Bowyn goes on a date with Drew (a callback to the inspiration behind Swift’s song “Teardrops on My Guitar”?). Less hirsute than his real-life counterpart, Drew has a not-so-secret crush on Bowyn. Mirroring actual events, Drew, like Kelce, attends one of her concerts, where he gushes over her performance and films her on his phone. After they get together, we see football skeptic Bowyn having a blast in his family’s VIP suite at a game. Along the way there are friendship bracelets, the strategic use of the number 13 on a football jersey, and the sight of Bowyn attending a Gonville family meal and helping wash the dishes afterwards. (Drew’s family is utterly charmed, of course.) When one TV talking head makes a crack about Bowyn not being able to “keep a man,” she pouts and says, “Why do they gotta be so mean?”
But despite all the, let’s call them, “similarities,” Christmas in the Spotlight does take some literary Lifetime license. Here, it’s Bowyn’s father, not mother, who has a bout with cancer, and here, Bowyn no longer gets along with her mom, whom, she says, pushed her too hard to make it in show business. Bowyn’s fans aren’t called “Sykies,” but “Arrowheads” in honor of her first name. Drew, possibly unlike his real-world inspiration, is such a devoted fan that he turns into a nervous teenager awaiting her call and shows up at a show in a pink Bowyn hoodie. And in the TV-movie version of events, Drew is a wide receiver, not tight end (his brother Rob is quarterback, not a center like the real Jason Kelce). The movie also adds tension between the Kelce — um, Gonville — brothers over the younger Drew feeling as if he’s playing in the shadow of his brother.
As for the music, the fake-Taylor songs play more like Katy Perry or Kacey Musgraves castoffs than Swiftie compositions, but the creatives behind it still seem to want to be on Swift’s good side. “The only thing I know about Bowyn is that she’s had a bunch of boyfriends and wrote songs about them,” Rob scoffs about his brother’s future girlfriend. Revealing his true Arrowhead self, Drew defends her by rattling off all her awards, the existence of “15 college courses” devoted to Bowyn and “her impact on society and culture.” Mira Vu would be proud.
Nearly 25 years ago, a made-for-VH1 movie called Two of Us imagined what could have gone down between John Lennon and Paul McCartney on that mysterious night in 1975 when the two reconvened, in Lennon’s New York apartment, to air grievances, share laughs, and reconcile. Christmas in the Spotlight isn’t nearly as unexpectedly compelling as that movie was, but it serves a similar function of allowing us to imagine private moments between the real-world people it emulates. Is it possible that, like Drew, Kelce addressed rumors that Swift was just in search of publicity by barking to his teammates, “She’s worth a billion dollars! She doesn’t need football fans!” Of course! Is it conceivable that Swift and Kelce first hooked up, just like Drew and Bowyn do, in an airport hangar, aboard Bowyn’s private plane, with Bowyn making Drew dress up like Santa Claus so that he wouldn’t be recognized? You bet! Will Swifties who despise her former boyfriends revel in seeing Bowyn tear down her smarmy actor ex, Hudson, with the closing line, “Thanks for all the hit singles, but the album is over”? Absolutely! Is it conceivable that Swift, at a game, once gushed, “I had no idea that football was this much fun!” like Bowyn does? Could be! When Bowyn gets her first gander at Drew’s abs, she gasps, “You are like a sculpture!” Did that happen for Tayor and Travis? Well, let’s not go there.
When the producers behind Christmas in the Spotlight were planning the movie, they may not have known it would arrive mere weeks after one of the most anxiety-inducing presidential elections of all time. And they may not have imagined the cathartic function their project would serve. As the country prepares for a new and possibly very harrowing era in American history, the nonstop absurdity of Christmas in the Spotlight is there for us. We knew it was trouble, but we need it anyway.
From Rolling Stone US
