Perhaps like you, I recently succumbed to watching Holidate, Netflix’s new addition to the holiday-themed rom com canon.
For those not yet privy to this film (otherwise known as “having a day job”), the premise is simple: Sloan and Jackson are two beautiful, perpetually single, and did I mention beautiful, people. As we all know, not having a date for the holidays is the wooooorst, but they take it a step further. Not only do they promise to be each other’s date for Valentine’s Day and New Year’s Eve – they go around the entire calendar to include someone else’s awkward family Christmas, a Fourth of July gone horribly and gorily wrong, and various other weddings and events as needed.
As a beautiful, perpetually single, and really to hammer it home movie-star-quality beautiful person myself, I can really relate to the plights of the stunning Emma Roberts and hunky Australian Luke Bracy. Oh, how many Thanksgivings I’ve gone to stag, how many New Years I’ve looked at my best friend at the time and debated kissing them, how many bar mitzvahs various family members have attempted to set me up with a cousin at (TRUE STORY, LOOKING AT YOU, GREAT AUNT RUTH).
As I hunkered down into watching Holidate and stress coloring, I gripped my markers everso tightly to prepare for what their depiction of a Jewish holiday would be. I mean, their playing out of a Cinco de Mayo celebration was ROUGH, and their St. Patrick’s Day revelling – ST. PATRICK’S DAY! – wasn’t much better, so I was really preparing for the worst.
And then, 365 days of Sloan and Jackson’s movie world passed and…
Bupkis.
No Jewish holidays. Was I… offended? On the one hand, I was relieved that the presumably non-Jewish writing team didn’t attempt to Go There, but on the other hand, our holidays are so wonderful. AND THERE ARE SO MANY OF THEM.
For your consideration, I present eight Jewish holidates (one for each night of Hanukkah you’re welcome) I’d like to have seen Sloan and Jackson TV-MA their way through.
1. Purim
A costume party goes wrong when a slutty Esther turns out to be Sloan’s best friend Abby (Jessica Capshaw).
2. Passover
Sloan and Jackson individually get invited to the same seder. Coming off of a long day of fighting and sexual tension, Sloan and Jackson eagerly eye the feast on the table in front of them. Sloan’s mom Elaine (Frances Fisher) is there with her older love interest Wally (Dan Lauria), as he leads the hungry crew through their generation’s old family haggadah. Wally has never quite realized it before, but this particular haggadah is not like other haggadahs: It’s filled with double entendres and downright dirty references, such as women being “flat as matzah” and a few too many references to “seamen” for comfort.
The reading of the haggadah takes literal hours, and Sloan and Jackson become weak from hunger and not having had sex in the movie yet. Everyone perks up when the tale gets to the part about leaving one chair open for Elijah and cue DRAMATIC DOORBELL RING. Everyone at the table looks at one another, and Wally rises to answer the door. Who should it be but ACTUAL FORMER CHILD ACTOR ELIJAH WOOD. Oops, he’s just got the wrong house. “I loved you in North!!!” nebbishy Peter (Alex Moffat) calls from the table.
The scene ends when the children of the family are all in an excited search for the afikomen, and Sloan accidentally sits on it with a CRUNCH. She winds up with a yeast infection three days later (in case you forgot for a second, this movie is supes crass).
3. Second Passover
Wally invites Sloan and Jackson to a second Passover and they instinctively shout out, “NO!”
4. Rosh Hashanah
Here we are at the Jewish New Year, and everyone is coupled up at their local farmer’s market stand selling apples and honey. A child playing with a toy rocket nearby begins a countdown. “Ten! Nine! Eight!” As the child nears zero, Sloan and Jackson make a joke about how they wonder if they should kiss, it being the New Year and all. Their heads become closer, entranced in the thought of kissing, and right at the call of “blast off!” they each receive a text message at the same time. Both of their messages are superimposed on the screen next to each other, and they both simply read: “Nobody calls, just sayin.’ xo Mom”
5. Yom Kippur
Sloan and Jackson painfully sit in services all day. At temple, they run into a hangry Aunt Susan (Kristen Chenowith) on a date, who just happens to be intermittent fasting and didn’t realize fasting was a custom. This scene is six hours long.
6. Sukkot
Sloan and Jackson help build a sukkah, where Jackson loses another finger while trying to assist (SPOILER ALERT).
7. Barbra Streisand’s Birthday
Sloan and Jackson find themselves in a gay bar, where everyone questions if they should be there being both straight and not Jewish. This is the most emphatically Jewish scene of the movie.
8. Hanukkah
Hot doctor Faarooq (Manish Dayal) invites Sloan and Jackson to his family’s multi-cultural Hanukkah party. Jackson accidentally knocks the menorah over, setting Sloan’s hair on fire (I don’t know anything about this experience) (really) (I’ve just always had TOO MUCH HAIR so it’s just likelier to catch on fire) (I’m not going to grow it out again, MOM).
And there you have it! Eight holidates I’d like to have seen in Holidate. Now I can finally return back to my coloring, lining up my own “holidate internet boyfriend in Canada” for Hanukkah, and never having to use the word “holidate” ever again.
