'A Merry Little Ex-Mas,' with its '90s nostalgia and relatable drama, is a dream for its stars

Oliver Hudson had the biggest crush connected Cher Horowitz.

When helium was 19 years old, Hudson swooned for her aft watching “Clueless,” the 1995 teen drama that transformed Alicia Silverstone into an overnight sensation. The movie was perfectly cast. Every histrion oozed Main Character Energy, but the crippled afloat revolved astir Silverstone’s Cher, the effervescent queen bee of Beverly Hills.

Young women wanted to formal similar Cher. Hudson wanted to day her.

“Cher was my No. 1,” the actor, present 49, said successful a caller interview. “I tried to find Cher successful Los Angeles. Didn’t enactment out. But I conscionable thought [Silverstone] was truthful adorable successful that. And she’s an astonishing histrion adjacent beyond that.”

Hudson welcomed the accidental to enactment with Silverstone successful “A Merry Little Ex-Mas,” Netflix’s vacation movie premiering Wednesday. Before speechmaking the script, however, helium disquieted that the task would impact partial nudity. Dustin Milligan went shirtless for “Hot Frosty.” So did Chad Michael Murray successful “The Merry Gentlemen.” The second was “dancing with his garment disconnected and he’s each shredded,” Hudson mused. “I’m like, my gosh, I anticipation erstwhile I work this, this astir 50-year-old antheral doesn’t person to bash thing of this sort. Because I bash not privation to dye my grey thorax hairsbreadth astatine this constituent successful my life.”

“A Merry Little Ex-Mas” spares Hudson the embarrassment. He and Silverstone play a divorcing mates who walk 1 past Christmas unneurotic arsenic a household successful the fictional tiny municipality of Winterlight, Vt. Hudson is Everett, a workaholic doctor, and Silverstone is Kate, a people-pleasing, eco-conscious handywoman who tin hole thing but their marriage. The exes grew isolated portion raising their kids, Sienna (Emily Hall) and Gabe (Hudson’s real-life son, Wilder), with Kate expressing deep, justifiable resentment contempt her cheery disposition. She regrets deciding years earlier to springiness up a promising vocation successful Boston, wherever she was a greenish architect, to travel Everett to the countryside. There, helium started a palmy aesculapian practice. Kate feels similar she missed her accidental to marque a affirmative interaction connected the planet. The roadworthy not taken is gnawing astatine her soul.

Wilder Hudson, left, is Oliver Hudson’s lad on-screen and successful existent life, and Emily Hall plays Sienna, Kate and Everett’s daughter.

(Marni Grossman / Netflix)

In galore ways, this movie checks disconnected each the boxes for a seasonal, feel-good flick. There are plentifulness of hijinks. There are twinkle-lights galore. There is real snow. But determination is besides existent drama. The struggle betwixt Kate and Everett? That’s neither cute nor gimmicky. That’s grown-up stuff.

“I don’t cognize anyone who gets divorced lightly,” said Silverstone, who produced the dramedy alongside Melissa Joan Hart and her mother, Paula Hart. “I conscionable don’t cognize anyone who goes, ‘I’m out. I’m bored. Let’s leave,’” particularly if some parties “still emotion each other.”

The communicative had to present a blessed ending, but Silverstone wanted to marque the brace “struggle and fight” for it. Otherwise, she said, “It seemed excessively silly that 2 radical would conscionable determine to interruption up and past recognize they privation to beryllium together” wrong a tidy, 90-minute clip span.

Enter Jameela Jamil and Pierson Fodé, each a formidable, fleeting obstacle connected the way toward marital reconciliation. With cheekbones arsenic crisp arsenic her tongue, Jamil exudes playful, feline glamour arsenic Tess, a New Yorker who runs a planetary nonprofit and breezes into Everett’s beingness aft falling connected the crystal and needing aesculapian attention. He invites her to walk the holidays with him … and Kate. (Awkward.) For Jamil, who grew up “worshipping” Silverstone and Hart successful the ’90s, deciding to bash the relation was a no-brainer.

“They could person been making a porno and I would’ve said yes, to beryllium perfectly honest,” gushed Jamil, an irreverent alum of NBC’s “The Good Place.” “And past I got to work the publication [by Holly Hester] and thought it was truthful saccharine and specified a lovely, realistic instrumentality connected Christmas.”

She appreciated that Tess managed to flight a lazy cliché: “the classical big-city bitch” who rolls into municipality with a large attitude.

“We’ve seen that quality a 1000 times,” Jamil said. “I wanted a genuinely likable quality who was hard for Kate to hatred due to the fact that she’s connected her ain journey. I notation to it arsenic ‘Perimenopause: The Christmas Movie,’ due to the fact that each of america are going done it, and she’s conscionable an guiltless pistillate looking for love, intelligibly having her ain manic episode. Because wherefore connected Earth is she spending Christmas with this antheral she’s conscionable met and hardly knows? And I thought it was bully to spot a quality that had a spot much nuance than conscionable being rude and snobby and superior.”

Chet (Pierson Fodé) catches the attraction of Kate (Alicia Silverstone) astatine a histrion farm. (Marni Grossman / Netflix)

Everett (Oliver Hudson) meets Tess (Jameela Jamil) aft she falls connected the ice. (Marni Grossman / Netflix)

Meanwhile, Kate attracts the attraction of a 28-year-old hunk named Chet (Fodé), whom she meets astatine a Christmas histrion farm. He is 6 feet 4, with a large bosom and dazzling smile. He hands her a concern paper that reads “I deterioration a batch of hats.” Among his broadside hustles: Santa-for-hire, “manny” and “exotic dancer.” At 1 point, Chet — mimicking Murray’s “Merry Gentlemen” striptease — tears disconnected his tuxedo, and portion baring his washboard abs, tries to prevention the time erstwhile Kate’s Christmas histrion catches occurrence successful homage to “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation.”

“I was wholly naked,” said Fodé, who antecedently starred successful the deed Netflix rom-com “The Wrong Paris.” “I mean, I had sock garters connected and a brace of candy-cane underwear, truthful you truly can’t get overmuch much bare than that without changing the movie title. I had an implicit blast.”

Filming the over-the-top scene, “I went successful connected that archetypal instrumentality truthful hard and dense that everybody screamed,” helium recalled. “Literally, Alicia jumped and screamed and Melissa, Jameela started laughing immediately.”

Fodé and Jamil became accelerated friends connected the snowy Toronto set, wherever the erstwhile kept a acold plunge tub. “Everybody’s invited to travel bid astatine the gym with me,” helium said. “This is my mode of bonding with people.”

Jamil, calling herself a “very nonathletic person,” took him up connected his offer, and “he personally trained maine and helium went truthful hard that I got a literal hernia. If you’ve ne'er exercised before, don’t workout with existent He-Man.”

Fortunately, she was capable to proceed filming. “It was truthful atrocious but hilarious,” she said of the incident. “Almost worthy it for however comic it was. But he’s the best.”

“I went successful connected that archetypal instrumentality truthful hard and dense that everybody screamed,” Pierson Fodé recalled of his ab-baring scene. “Literally, Alicia jumped and screamed and Melissa, Jameela started laughing immediately.”

(Courtesy of Netflix)

Director Steve Carr, whose credits see the comedies “Next Friday” and “Daddy Day Care,” encouraged improvisation arsenic helium strived to recreate the magic of the play — easier said than done. A batch of effort goes into designing the look of a movie similar this. The unspoken extremity is that the decor meets Mariah Carey’s standards. To that end, Paula Hart’s instructions were “very ‘Christmas successful each shot,’” Carr recalled.

He grew frustrated astatine times, similar erstwhile a determination scout recovered an “absolutely gorgeous” location that was close adjacent doorway to an airport. Another clip helium advised a prop feline to deliberation of a bacchanal portion mounting Kate’s meal table. “I get determination connected the time [of the shoot],” Carr recalled, “and there’s eggs and sausage … Then I realized the feline didn’t cognize what ‘bacchanal’ meant.”

In hindsight, Carr enjoyed “the chaos” of the job. He championed the thought of casting 18-year-old Wilder, who makes his movie debut other his dada contempt immoderate interior opposition.

“He’s not your emblematic teenage actor,” said Hudson, who shares Wilder, 15-year-old lad Bodhi and 12-year-old girl Rio with woman Erinn Bartlett. “This kid is real. He’s not jaded oregon tainted by thing yet. And to Netflix’s credit, they took a accidental connected him.”

Hudson got affectional watching Wilder recite a heartfelt code successful the film’s finale.

“I conscionable started to outcry due to the fact that I’m conscionable looking astatine my lad and I’ve been doing this for 25-plus years,” helium said. “I’m like, he’s successful my satellite present and he’s doing this and he’s doing well, and he’s got this full aboriginal up of him if helium wants it.”

Silverstone treated Wilder arsenic if helium was her own.

“It was saccharine due to the fact that helium was 17 astatine the time, and my lad [Bear] is 14, and I can’t carnivore the thought of a 17-year-old lad not wanting to beryllium adjacent to their mom,” she said, recalling that Wilder “let maine buss him a batch and conscionable dote connected him arsenic if helium was inactive a baby.”

She and Kate stock a communal passionateness for biology activism. (At 1 point, Kate explains her five-minute ablution regularisation to Tess, quipping, “No 1 takes showers for much than 5 minutes unless you’re a dick.”)

Jameela Jamil says she grew up “worshipping” Alicia Silverstone and Melissa Joan Hart successful the ’90s, and deciding to articulation “A Merry Little Ex-Mas” was a no-brainer.

(Marni Grossman / Netflix)

“When you deliberation astir an environmentalist and an histrion who embodies that, [Silverstone] is that through-and-through,” said Melissa Joan Hart, who plays Kate’s sassy champion person April successful the film. “And past connected apical of that, I consciousness similar the ‘nostalgia people’ benignant of miss her and miss her look and consciousness comfy with her.”

As for Hudson, the lad of Goldie Hawn and member to Kate Hudson, “a ceramic partition could autumn successful emotion with Oliver. Just dreamy eyes [on] that guy,” she observed. “I mean, I had immoderate incidents erstwhile I was twentysomething years aged successful a fewer nightclubs. Ran into Oliver and conscionable benignant of [started] blubbering and not making immoderate sense. And you’re like, ‘Whoa, what is this charm this feline has?’”

Silverstone, for her part, said she didn’t cognize Hudson earlier his sanction came up arsenic her imaginable co-star. The 2 connected connected the telephone for a chemistry work erstwhile she was successful Ireland shooting the Acorn TV bid “Irish Blood.”

“It was wide that helium was solid, that helium had each the things I needed,” she said.

Then, erstwhile they met successful person, “we instantly became a family,” Hudson said.

The actors crossed paths successful the airdrome lounge and learned they were connected the aforesaid formation to Toronto for the six-week shoot.

“We got to Canada and I took her passport with my son’s passport and went done customs, went done the immigration, went done the work-permit stuff, and I was handling it arsenic if I was the husband,” helium said. “And we were laughing together, like, ‘Wow, we got disconnected connected the close foot, I guess, close here.’ So it was benignant of immediate. We assumed the roles successful existent life.”