“A charming, unapologetically feel good story of two friends”
BY DIVA STAFF
New Year’s Eve has come early, thanks to I Hate New Year’s, a holiday themed lesbian RomCom brought to you by the team at Tello Films and DASH Productions.
When rising music star, Layne Price, heads home to Nashville for New Year’s Eve to break her writer’s block, she discovers that sometimes you find inspiration—and love, with a little mystical intervention—where you least expect it, in the charming, holiday RomCom, I Hate New Year’s.Filmed in Nashville and stars actress/singers Dia Frampton (runner up in the inaugural season of The Voice and lead singer of the band Meg & Dia) and Ashley Argota (The Fosters, Lab Rats, Broadway’s The Lion King), as well as groundbreaking actress Candis Cayne (the Magicians, Grey’s Anatomy, I Am Cait, Elementary, Dirty Sexy Money) in a magical, dual role.
I Hate New Year’s is exactly as it says on the tin: a charming, unapologetically feel good story of two friends, Layne (Dia Frampton) and Cassie (Ashley Argota) zig-zagging their way around Nashville on a New Year’s quest to find Layne’s ex-girlfriend. The thing is: we know that the only girl that Layne should be chasing is Cassie because… yes, Cassie is in love with Layne. We know this. Their best gay male friend knows this. The comedic clairvoyant/driver (played with comic panache by Candis Cayne) knows this. Heck, the whole of social media knows this. So why doesn’t Layne? Probably because she is on a mission to unblock herself emotionally so that she can get her creative mojo back. In true New Year’s style she navigates her way around familiar Nashville, the city she left abruptly to seek fame and fortune in LA. Her homecoming, however, is as much about finding herself again as it is to excise her former girlfriend.
As the two leads Dia Frampton and Ashley Argota have instant chemistry, the ‘best friends turned girlfriends’ formula works, not least because their evolving romance is underscored by a sensational soundtrack with both of them signalling their attraction for each other in song. And whilst we enjoy the near kisses and misses there is genuine comfort in knowing that the girl will get the girl even if it’s not the girl she set out to get. I Hate New Year’s is co-writer and director, Christin Baker’s second RomCom, the first being last year’s smash lesbian Christmas hit movie, Season of Love. Whilst her first movie was set in Los Angeles, Christin Baker says that the decision to shoot I Hate New Year’s in Nashville was both an economic and creative decision – certainly Nashville is brought to life as a perfect backdrop for the hectic New Year’s chase in search of old and new love. The New Year’s Eve adage ‘out with the old and in with the new’ never rang so true.
I Hate New Year’s is a truly independent movie and given the challenges of filming in the eye of the pandemic being a small crew in a more contained location meant they were able to keep within a production bubble, carry on filming and not have to delay the scheduled release date. Good news for us queer RomCom fans because it means we can have a little New Year’s Eve magic well before the end of the most unmagical year ever.
Available for streaming today, I Hate New Year’s is available on demand here.
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