A Very Jonas Christmas Movie will be a lot more than a festive, fun time for long-time Jonas Brothers fans. Of course, this movie is for everyone, but it’ll be most sentimental and successful for those who know the band’s history. Written by Isaac Aptaker & Elizabeth Berger and directed by Jessica Yu, A Very Jonas Christmas Movie immediately tells you exactly what it is when Will Ferrell (Yes, you read that right!) is the first person to appear on screen. It’s a cameo-filled, frequently corny holiday movie with plenty of convenient plot devices.
But that’s all on A Very Jonas Christmas Movie’s surface. Beneath that, the sharp, self-depricating humor that pokes at more than the brothers’ career choices cuts into the heart of the movie. It’s about the brothers choosing to be together after all this time, after 20 years. A Very Jonas Christmas Movie moves through so much of Europe in 48 hours, thanks to the script’s great pacing. It also impressively spans the two decades since Nick, Joe, and Kevin became a band in 2005. Presumably, it helps that the brothers are credited as producers.
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The Jonas Brothers’ Holiday Humor
Because, yes, A Very Jonas Christmas Movie is outrageously silly. Nick can’t help but involve himself in a “Who can sing higher?” competition with Andrew Barth Feldman’s Ethan, who played Nick’s son in a three-week run of a Home Alone musical. It’s a wild sentence that completely works in the movie’s context of rolling with it all. Jonas Brothers’ song-related pun intended! The same is true for Jesse Tyler Ferguson, who appears as Santa Claus and casts a spell on the brothers and eventually removes a pack of hungry wolves from their path. It’s undeniably great that Jesse Tyler Ferguson’s last line is an Oasis joke.
Nick, Joe, and Kevin also joke about being dads in their 30s, but even that speaks to the time that has passed. It gets to the emotional underbelly of A Very Jonas Christmas Movie. At one point, Ethan harshly tells Nick, “You can’t stand that your time in the sun is up.” The movie plays up the line, but it still feels quite vulnerable to share. The Jonas Brothers have been around for a while – 20 years, two decades. That line lands as another way for A Very Jonas Christmas Movie to bring some inner dialogues to the surface in a lighter, more palatable way. It does with Joe and Kevin playing with sugar cubes while Nick shuts down a tour extension, Kevin and Nick popping up on Joe’s phone to tear down his personal life; Joe and Nick appearing in Kevin’s mirror to rock his confidence.
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The Soundtrack to the Season
The brothers play exaggerated versions of themselves in this movie, but their performances bring the reality to it. This sentiment is particularly great when KJ Apa’s Glenn (Another fantastic cameo!) crashes a private jet, leaving the brothers stranded in a snowy German forest. The context is bizarre, but it is moving to watch Nick, Joe, and Kevin yell their apologies to each other. A Very Jonas Christmas harnesses that emotion after “Better Off Alone.”
It is so effective to pop the captions on the screen during Kevin’s guitar solo because he has yet to sing lead. That entire storyline speaks to the band’s evolution and Kevin’s place in that process. It’s also incredibly well-timed, given that Kevin Jonas’s first-ever solo single, “Changing,” is out now.
As if it needs to be said, Jonas Brothers fans will absolutely love the movie’s music. “Coming Home This Christmas” is the lead single for a reason. It’s even better than the band’s last take on a holiday song – 2020’s “Like It’s Christmas.” “Best Night” has a similar vibe to “Heart and Soul” from Camp Rock 2. There’s actual choreography (Yes, that choreo!) from the DCOM during “Home for Christmas.” “Feel Something” is a delightful surprise if you wait to hear the song until you watch the movie. It’s a duet between Joe Jonas and Chloe Bennet.
Bennet plays Lucy Chen, a girl whom the brothers knew when they were younger. Joe had a crush on her, but she moved away and became a cardiothoracic surgeon. Their meet-cute is, again, entirely convenient, but Jonas and Bennet’s chemistry makes Joe and Lucy’s scenes really sweet. Bennet’s delivery of “You just feel like my old favorite sweater” and Jonas’s reaction to it sell everything you need to know about their dynamic. Honestly, A Very Jonas Christmas Movie should be Joe Jonas’s audition to lead a romantic comedy.
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Every Moment, Every Brother, Every Feeling Matters
That plot ties into the theme of the brothers reconnecting with their younger selves to remember what’s important. Understandably, they spend most of the movie thinking of their family, their kids. “Remember When” gives Nick, Joe, and Kevin a chance – surrounded by Christmas trees – to think of themselves as kids again. The edit, including home videos and footage from the band’s earliest days, tugs at the heartstrings. During this sequence, it’s challenging to deny the movie’s parody, but it’s also honest and heartfelt, and can only happen now.
As someone who has been a Jonas Brothers fan since the very beginning, that scene and the one in the woods stand out because of everything they stand on. The Jonas Brothers have been around for two decades, but during that time, the band had a six-year hiatus from 2011 to 2019, with the breakup beginning in 2013. They have been honest that Nick was the one who spearheaded the conversations to break up the band. Though exaggerated and heightened, A Very Jonas Christmas Movie seems to feel the weight of that very real part of their story when discussing Nick’s tendency to make unilateral decisions.
The only way to have that conversation in this context is for it to follow 2019’s Chasing Happiness documentary and the Happiness Begins album. It’s no wonder the end credits include a “Sucker” performance! A Very Jonas Christmas Movie is as good as it is because of the actual Jonas Brothers’ history. For example, “Every moment, every brother, every feeling matters” is a strange mantra at the start, but the movie earns it by the end. It’s endearing to see Nick, Joe, and Kevin sing and dance to “Time” with their family – all those years have led them here.
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A Very Jonas Christmas Movie is streaming now on Disney+.
