Is Nov. 1 too early to start celebrating the holiday season? Netflix doesn't think so.
The streaming platform released this year's first of many live-action holiday movies on Friday, "Holiday in the Wild." It stars Rob Lowe, Kristen Davis – and a ton of elephants.
Here's the gist, from the movie's official description: "When her husband abruptly ends their marriage, empty-nester Kate embarks on a solo second honeymoon in Africa, finding purpose – and potential romance."
It doesn't get much deeper than that, but that's the joy in it. Romantic comedies, and especially ones set around or during the holidays, want you to want a couple of things: someone to break up with their workaholic partner; someone to fall in love with someone else surrounded by sparkling lights, mistletoe, etc.; and someone to have an epiphany where they realize something in their life was wrong or missing until right now. "Holiday in the Wild" has it all.
Kate (Davis) is a former veterinarian who quit practicing to support her husband and raise her son. But that son is off to college, so she's feeling restless. She doesn't want to just be one of the "ladies who lunch." As fate would have it, her husband has the perfect disruption: he's leaving her. An announcement he makes right after she tells him she's booked them a second honeymoon to Africa.
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But Kate doesn't let her crumbling marriage get her down. She decides she'll go to Africa alone. And in true rom-com fashion, she almost immediately meets Derek (Lowe), a sad-eyed but charming pilot/painter/elephant-saver who says things like, "Alone is good. Also guarantees the best company."
On their first venture together (an ill-fated couple's safari where Derek is the pilot, naturally), they encounter an orphaned baby elephant. Kate's latent veterinarian compassion kicks in and she decides she must abandon her Charlotte York-like plans and instead help this poor animal. She, of course, knows "almost nothing" about elephants, but this is a Christmas movie and compassion is all you need.
Over the course of a month, Kate becomes a full-time elephant rehabilitator, which is what Derek does when he's not flying tourists around in planes, it turns out. She feeds elephants bottles, exchanges quippy banter and knowing glances with Derek and finds herself. She ultimately decides not to return to New York, at least for now, so that she can keep helping and we can all experience Christmas in Zambia together.
We won't give the rest away, but we're sure you can probably figure it out. Because, yeah, "Holiday in the Wild" isn't groundbreaking. It's not going to win any awards. But it's sweet, it's kind and there are a lot of cute elephants. It's a nice starter to get your heart ready for all the holiday cheer to come.
Last holiday season, KVUE's Britny Eubank reviewed all of Netflix's live-action seasonal offerings in 24 hours. You can check that out to get yourself in the holiday spirit – and if you want to read more of her thoughts on all sorts of movies, she writes about them every month.
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