Emer McLysaght: We deserve a so-bad-it’s-good Irish Christmas film

There must be big bucks in the corny Christmas movie game. You know the type? A hard-nosed big city executive who’s planning on working straight through the festive season gets comically stranded in a one-horse town. Slowly but surely her icy core is melted by the can-do attitudes of the local folk, despite their Christmas being threatened by Big Oil scheming to bulldoze straight through their iconic town square. Ol’ hard nose stands up to the bullies, and in the meantime finds out she does have a heart after all.

She also falls for the local widower, helped along by his precocious eight-year-old daughter and a mysterious and kindly stranger with a big beard. She dresses exclusively in red wool coats and knee-high boots with a modest heel. Maybe a beret. Her hairstyle gets looser metaphorically as she learns to unwind, and the handsome widower’s stubble gets more stubbly. Maybe he opens another button on his check shirt. The townspeople are one-dimensional rubes who just constantly cross the square waving at each other. There’s a wise pregnant woman whose hands never move from her bump. There’s an evil sister or cousin with a gay best friend sidekick who will either be redeemed at the end of the tight 90 minutes, or else meet a comic and perilous demise in a snow drift. There will be four sequels, each with very slight variations on plot.

Sure aren’t we always up to that kind of magical craic here on the old sod with our castles and our snaggletoothed old men?

For years these films have been the bread and butter of the Hallmark Channel in the US, but more and more have seeped into popular culture on this side of the Atlantic. Netflix got into the game in a big way with the 2017 release of the dire and irresistible A Christmas Prince, in which the world’s worst journalist uncovered a scandal at the centre of a fictional royal family. Obviously, she falls for the prince with the help of his precocious little sister, and despite the meddling of his cousin.

They made two sequels involving a wedding and a birth. The journalist wore Converse on her feet at all times so we knew she was still down to earth. A Christmas Prince was a huge hit for Netflix, mostly because it hit the perfect “so bad it’s good” tone right on the head. A memorable scene involved the intrepid reporter making her notes in MS Word. Hard hitting memos like “I have to find out!” and “I still don’t know the real story!” get Mr Pulitzer on the line.

Our local supermarket had a creche, and I happily survived it

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Every time I travel abroad I am gripped by the fear that Ireland is making a fool of me

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Emer McLysaght: You’re going to see phones at gigs. Suck it up

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[ The key to surviving any outing with children is to have low expectations ]

This year Netflix upped its game by inviting Lindsay Lohan to star in their leading Christmas movie, Falling for Christmas. It’s Lohan’s first significant role after years of scandal, following a very promising career as a young actor. She plays a spoilt daddy’s girl who has a fall and develops amnesia. Luckily, the handsome owner of the local failing inn – obviously also a widower with a precocious daughter – helps her out and shows her how happy she can be living humbly. As terrible Christmas movies go, it’s not the worst.

Lohan signed a three-movie deal with Netflix, one of which is an Irish romcom she filmed in Mayo, Dublin and Wicklow over the past few months. Irish Wish sees Maddie, played by Lohan, wishing for true love on the eve of her best friend’s wedding and when she wakes up she’s turned into the bride. Sure aren’t we always up to that kind of magical craic here on the old sod with our castles and our snaggletoothed old men?

Lindsay’s happy ending might come when she finds out the groomsman she kissed while dancing to Lady in Red has a mortgage and heated bathroom floors in a commuter belt town

A more realistic plot for Irish Wish might see Lohan arrive in Ireland for a wedding and immediately realise that she lacks the stamina to keep up with the three-day affair. She might wish for a second wind at 11pm when instead of winding down, the guests appear to be ingesting a second dinner of sausages and sandwiches and the women are applying flip flops to their feet so that they may keep dancing. Lindsay’s happy ending might come when she finds out the groomsman she kissed while dancing to Lady in Red has a mortgage and heated bathroom floors in a commuter belt town.

Meanwhile, a so-bad-it’s-good festive film set in Ireland might start off with absolute war in the rural home of an all right-looking widower who discovers that his precocious daughter has broken into the two litres of Christmas Lilt. All hell breaks loose when he finds out the cardboard box of Roses he bought for the neighbour has been infiltrated from the bottom, and all the purple ones have been scoffed.

[ Emer McLysaght: Would an island like Arranmore welcome a blow-in like me? ]

A festive curmudgeon played by Lindsay Lohan gets stranded in the village and happens upon midnight Mass at 7.30pm, before getting drawn into a dilemma that’s threatening to ruin Christmas – maybe Santa has fallen foul of regional public transport, or the peaceful yuletide some local asylum seekers were hoping for is being upended by an even more peaceful protest. Lindsay, aided by the widower and his daughter, saves the day and quickly comes to terms with settling down in a place with 17 pubs and no post office. God bless us, everyone.