Lifetime continues to add to their “It’s A Wonderful Lifetime” movie slate with their movie Ladies of the ’80s: A Divas Christmas. This love letter to soap operas features Loni Anderson, Morgan Fairchild, Linda Gray, Donna Mills, and Nicollette Sheridan as the titular divas, with Travis Burns and Taylor Ann Thompson as their supporting cast. In addition to trying to put up a soap opera reunion special for the ages, the movie also tries its hand at a little romance. Does Ladies of the ’80s: A Divas Christmas pull it all off, or was this a reunion that didn’t need to happen after all?
The Gist: The “Famous Five” of a famous long-running ’80s soap opera called The Great Lakes are reuniting years later for a live final Christmas special organized by writer-producer (and former child actor) Alex (Travis Burns). Although all seems to run smoothly as stars Lily Marlowe (Loni Anderson), Margaux Roberts (Morgan Fairchild), Lauren Ewing (Linda Gray), and Dana Cunningham (Donna Mills) trickle into the Malibu mansion where they’re shooting the special, a surprise entrance from Juliette Matheson (Nicollette Sheridan) threatens to put the kibosh on the whole thing. You see, Dana and Juliette used to be best friends but then when Dana left the soap and moved to Los Angeles for her career, Juliette felt utterly betrayed, creating a gaping rift and ongoing feud between them.
Now, tensions are running high between all the divas as they struggle to put old rivalries behind them. It’s not until Lauren overhears Alex telling the shoot’s director—and his former college “best friend” who has always been into him— Nell (Taylor Ann Thompson) that if this reunion is a flop, his career is over, that the divas are able to pull themselves together. Feeling bad, they decide to go through with the special and pretend to like one another for the sake of Alex and their own careers, thereby kicking off a Christmas special that will have a major impact on all involved.
What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Nell getting a makeover and kind of changing herself for Alex is kind of like Sandy’s big makeover in Grease. The food fight towards the end of the movie is reminiscent of ones you’ve seen in other movies, like Whip It. And then everything with the divas will remind you of any major soap opera like General Hospital, Days of Our Lives, or All My Children.
Performance Worth Watching: You know what, all of the divas committed hard and were ultimately pretty fun to watch, even if sometimes their lines and actions were a bit cringe-worthy. I mean, this is inspired by soap operas after all, a little cringe is practically a necessity!
Memorable Dialogue: “Come on, Mom, you’re America’s sweetheart from a hit sitcom. Who in real life adopted five children from war-torn countries. You’re practically Mother Teresa.”
Additional honorable mentions to: “But trust me, helping Lisa Vanderpump use a bamboo outhouse is the definition of charity,””I have to look good for Keto Con in January,” and “Fasten your facelifts, ladies. It’s gonna be a bumpy weekend.”
A Holiday Tradition: Well, it seems like the live The Great Lakes Christmas special itself could become an annual holiday thing if all goes well enough.
Does the Title Make Any Sense?: Yep. They’re ladies who were superstars in the ’80s and are now reuniting for a Christmas special. It definitely does well to set up what this whole movie’s about.
Our Take: As you may or may not be able to tell, I am not a soap opera person. When I’ve seen them, I’ve usually been amused by the dramatics of it all, but I never seek them out, so take this review with a grain of salt. Ladies of the ’80s: A Divas Christmas is not for me. It was clearly made for people who love soap operas in all their campy, over-the-top glory, who can appreciate that each of the five divas’ last names come from actual soap opera characters they played in the past. I am absolutely not the intended audience, and I think most people are not, but this movie isn’t concerned with us. They’re doing this for the soap lovers, and that’s it.
As a result, I was often lost by the old references and very specific name-dropping jokes that tended to revolve around ’80s and ’90s cultural staples. The campiness was sometimes, to me at least, so over the top it just made things weird (like some of the cheesy montages or that kind of gross food fight). Even so, I still found that I really enjoyed some of the scenes where the divas were all together just interacting with one another and able to do their thing. The actresses were clearly all having fun on this project together, and that made it hard not to have fun along with them, too.
Unfortunately, what erases a lot of the joy that those delightful divas brought to the table is the romance between Alex and Nell. Or practically everything about Alex and Nell. I just found their interactions so tedious, the whole “friendzoned girl pining over guy who doesn’t seem to notice her until she gets a makeover and makes him jealous” trope feels nearly as out of time and place as the divas’ old soap opera. Their story just lacked charm and likability, and I never really found myself invested or even rooting for them to get together.
Rather, I was more freaked out by Nell, who had apparently been madly in love with Alex all this time since they last saw each other in college five years, three months and four days (yeah, she’s been keeping count, yikes). She’s never subtle about her interest to the point where she truly just seems obsessed in a pretty unhealthy kind of way, and yet on his end he never seems that into her until she makes him jealous and suddenly he reveals he loved her all along. Evidently, they had one kiss in college that was “Romeo and Juliet epic” although those same sparks are never really apparent in this movie, no matter how much the other characters try to tell us how into each other Alex and Nell are. So honestly, in my opinion, Ladies of the ’80s: A Divas Christmas would have just been better off with less of their contrived romance and more of the divas just doing their thing.
Our Call: SKIP IT. Unless you’re a soap opera superfan, Ladies of the ’80s: A Divas Christmas will likely not appeal to you as go-to holiday viewing.