Single All The Way Review: Netflix Delivers The Queer Holiday Rom-Com You’ve Been Waiting For
Sometimes everything we need is right under our noses.
Beautiful, cheery, and chocked full of star power talent, Netflix’s Single All The Way is a perfect Christmas rom-com that will get you in the spirit (and re-evaluating your friendships) this holiday season.
One of the best things about Single All The Way — and there are many — is the follow-through of promise for real representation in a holiday-themed film. This isn’t just one gay character in a movie otherwise overstuffed with straight relationships.
The film’s main love interests might be two gay men, but they aren’t the only gay characters who exist in the universe. Before flying home to New Hampshire, almost everyone in Peter and Nick’s life is queer, and even when he returns home for vacation, the man has plenty of options.
This isn’t two men falling in love because there’s no other choice — this is two men falling in love because they are each other’s best match. It’s a true best friends to lovers story that celebrates queerness authentically, instead of presenting as a straight film that simply happens to have queer people in it.
While “friends to lovers” may be the general trope choice of the movie, Single All The Way takes plenty of creative liberties to keep it from falling into stereotypical Christmas film structure.
The film sets up a “fake dating to real dating” premise after Peter gets duped by his secretly married boyfriend, but then swerves in narrative, opening the story up to a wider net.
Instead of two people pretending to date in order to please his parents, the story pivots; Peter’s family knows he isn’t with Nick, but they want him to be. The film then morphs into a journey of a family trying their best to make two people recognize how fantastic they’d be as a couple.
That family happens to be an ensemble filled with some of comedy’s best talent. Barry Bostwick and Kathy Najimy star as Peter’s parents — well-meaning folks who sometimes miss the mark, but always try their best.
Everyone in Peter’s life is a star in their own right, but work together to create a world so effortlessly warm and full, it’s easy to believe they’ve been family all along.
There’s a special delight in Bostwick’s character, who takes lead as Nick and Peter’s matchmaker. It’s particularly touching to watch a father who knows his son, go to extreme lengths in order to make them happy.
Jennifer Robertson is Peter’s sister, proving she’s just as hilarious now as she was on Schitt’s Creek, and Jennifer Coolidge is criminally underused as Peter’s Aunt Sandy, providing the film with some of its most prominent laugh-out-loud moments.
Seriously — she four separate roles (including Glenda the Good Witch?) in a children’s theatre production of the Virgin Mary. It’s brilliant.
As for Michael Urie and Philemon Chambers, both are unbelievably charming in their takes on the roles. Peter is witty and self-deprecating — something Urie always plays to perfection — while Chambers plays Nick more gently; soft-spoken in nature, he radiates comfort from the moment he steps on the screen.
The two of them together certainly have the chemistry needed to sell a love story, though at times it feels strangely unenthused. Big climactic scenes — like Nick admitting he’s in love with Peter — feel indifferent for how poignant they are to driving the story forward, and certain directional choices don’t frame important scenes with the emotional levity they deserve.
Chambers and Urie’s charisma is enough to keep any scene from ever falling too flat. Moments like Peter rushing in to confess his love, or Nick admitting his feelings all play as believable, with just the right amount of emotion, passion, and perhaps a little bit of realistic awkwardness.
If anything about Single All The Way is hard to accept, it’s how long Peter takes to realize what he has with Nick.
Nick is a loving, selfless, dog-saving man who embraces Peter’s family as his own. it’s hard to witness Peter dating so many wrong people before coming around to such an obvious truth. No third part stands a single chance, but as Unhappiest Season taught us — maybe that’s a good thing.
Maybe that’s the whole point.
Peter has a conversation with his nieces about how his hesitation comes more from a fear of losing Nick, than never noticing he was the one. It’s more about being scared to take the chance, than never wanting to take the chance at all.
At its more basic theme, Single All The Way is a lesson about figuring out what you want for your life and making that vision a reality. It’s about using the holidays as an opportunity to slow down, step back, and reevaluate what matters, then doing whatever it takes to hold on tight.
It’s a beautiful message, wrapped up in a charming Christmas-themed bow. And with an ensemble cast making the concept of family just as important as the idea of romantic love, Single All The Way is certainly a film worth gifting a sequel.
What did you think of Single All The Way? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
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Single All The Way is airing now on Netflix.
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Kat Pettibone
Kat Pettibone is an aspiring TV writer, artist, and poet. As a Pacey Witter Fan Club lifer who never missed a TGIF, she has dreams of becoming your generations small screen Nora Ephron. She's also an avid lover of coffee, dogs and all things spooky.