Like everyone else, when I first saw the trailer for Netflix’s “Hot Frosty” — about a snowman who comes to life to charm a single woman in a small town — I groaned and giggled at the same time. It felt like a parody of the cheesy Christmas TV movie genre, the kind of simplistic, home-for-the-holidays fun that Hallmark has long championed and Netflix has successfully showcased to a younger audience over the last handful of years. I figured I’d half-watch at some point while also imbibing in some holiday cheer when doom-scrolling got a little too bleak.
Well.
I finally viewed the 90-minute smash starring Dustin Milligan as the titular Frosty and Lacey Chabert, and while it’s not winning any Emmys, it’s a sweet, surprisingly charming outing that should be able to hold its own entertaining both your parents and any teens in your life this holiday season. (I suppose this is the part where I tell you I’ve seen nearly all of Netflix’s Christmas films since the streamer first dipped its toe into the viral water with “The Christmas Prince” back in 2017; I find the “Princess Switch” films starring Vanessa Hudgens particularly delightful.)
Briefly: Chabert plays Kathy, a widow who lives in Hope Springs (perfect) and is sad this holiday season because she’s all alone. While wandering past all the snowmen on display for a contest in the town square, she wraps a red scarf a busybody neighbor gave her around one of the snow statues. Smash cut to the next morning and that snowman is a very alive, very hot…man. Hijinks — and a whole lot of sexual tension — ensue.
Sure, it’s goofy and if you hate fun, this one certainly won’t be for you. But it’s not that much stranger than the logline for any beloved holiday classic, whether that be an Elf from the North Pole going to NYC, or a harried mother forgetting one of her kids at home before a long trip. I won’t spoil how this one ends, but like those favorites it also has a timely, sweet message; this one about welcoming love into your life, no matter for how long or how inconvenient.
One of my favorite things about this movie (besides the higher-than-expected production values, thanks to director Jerry Ciccoritti and team), is how deeply committed everyone is to the silly premise, particularly Chabert as a woman who is open to starting over with love again and never expected it to be with a man like Jack, who claims to be a snowman and can’t be indoors for too long — because he might start melting, duh. She is a woman on the verge… of wanting to fuck a snowman, a fact she plays with matter-of-fact sincerity and exactly zero winks to camera. (Well, maybe just the one.) Another delight is Craig Robinson as the antagonist/chief of police, a law-and-order tyrant who wants to catch Jack because he stole some clothes when he first came to life one day.
A purposefully ridiculous plot isn’t an easy thing to pull off; Netflix’s other big offering this year, “The Merry Gentlemen” — about putting on a strip show to save the town music hall — is particularly atrocious. “Hot Frosty‘s” screenplay, by Russell Hainline, doesn’t get bogged down in any kind of detailed explanations or world-building: Jack used to be made of snow, he’s incredibly attractive, and everyone in this small town is kind of fine with it. How’d it happen? Don’t worry about it. How’d he learn to talk? Don’t know! Aren’t the power dynamics between a literal brand-new human male and an adult woman a little troubling? I swear to God, I don’t care!!
“Hot Frosty” replaces subplots for joy; spotlighting tentative romance instead of anything flashier. But by the end of its runtime, I was genuinely pulling for Kathy and Jack to make it work. After all, they may not share the same body temperature(!), but if holiday TV movies have taught me anything it’s that love, with help from some holiday spirit, can overcome just about anything.
That’s what I call Christmas magic.
“Hot Frosty” is now streaming on Netflix.