The perfect sapphic seasonal film
BY JACQUIE LAWRENCE, IMAGE BY TELLO
Like holly and ivy or mince pies with eggnog, the holiday season just wouldn’t be the same without a female queer Christmas themed rom-com, courtesy of friends at Tello Films. This year’s celluloid gift, Christmas At The Ranch, is the third festive film directed by queer filmmaker Christin Baker and stars Laur Allen as Haley Hollis, who is forced to return to her family’s ranch to try save its fortunes. Laur Allen is a Tello favourite, having wowed us in the streamers’ Christmas movie, Season Of Love.
In this latest movie, which is less ensemble than the first one, she gets the chance to shine as a woman in career crisis whose forced return to her family for Christmas is made all the more frustrating by having to contend with ranch-hand Kate. Or, rather, having to contend with not falling for her. Kate is played by the assured Amanda Righetti (The Mentalist) and her natural sexiness, set against the background of wintery Tennessee, is hard for anyone to resist. The extra present under the Tello tree is the casting of Lindsay Wagner (yes, The Bionic Woman) as Meemaw, the matriarch of both family and ranch.
As director, Baker applies all the rules of rom-com filmmaking to Christmas At The Ranch and is confident to amplify the queer gaze so that the movie remains authentic in it’s queerness whilst suiting the mainstream content and style. One of three queer rom-coms highlighted in a recent NBC online article, Christmas At The Ranch, has cemented Baker as the lesbian trailblazer in the production and distribution of this brand new exciting genre.
Christmas at the Ranch is available from today at Tello.
And you can watch a trailer here.
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