Culture

Forget movies like Roma and Avengers, the year-end holiday season is for movies that are goofy, silly and even if they aren’t the best of the best, they’re happy. Movies that are about family, friends, love with humour splashed haphazardly all over them are great to get that gooey feeling going in your belly.

We’ve picked out some movies to give you that feel-good goop to end the year on a better note.

Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga

Don’t take it seriously, drop your expectations at the floor and leave logic at the door because this movie isn’t meant to be taken seriously. Just kick back, relax and let Will Ferrell do all the singing.

Ferrell and Rachel McAdams play Icelandic singers Lars Erickssong and Sigrit Ericksdóttir on their journey through Eurovision. The movie promises laughs, bright lights and all the drama worth of a Eurovision performance.

Holidate

This movie is the epitome of ‘this seems like a good idea, at least until we fall in love and mess it up’. Emma Roberts and Luke Bracey play Sloane and Jackson, two people sick of being harassed about their single status around the holiday season.

In a bid to rid themselves of woeful relatives and bad setups, they combine forces to be each other’s ‘holidate’. The template is predictable but for those looking for a silly new rom-com that’s holiday-themed, it’s a good shout.

Little Miss Sunshine

Valerie Faris and Jonathan Dayton tragicomedy has just the right amount of happiness and tears mixed up in a beautiful story about life. The acting is superb, especially Abigail Breslin as a little girl on a mission to join a beauty pageant.

The family is dysfunctional at it’s best as they travel across states to get Olive to her beauty pageant. With a stressed-out mother, gay suicidal uncle, foul-mouthed grandfather and Nietzsche-reading silent brother, Olive is the least strange part of this movie. Even though there are moments so uncomfortable they pinch at the eyes, the highs fill you with that warm sunny feeling.

Late Night

Emma Thompson is an on-the-outs late-night talk show host who needs some spicing up and Mindy Kaling is here to give it to her. Adding a dash of colour to the otherwise pale male group of writers that Thompson’s Katherine Newbury has on call.

Together they become a force to be reckoned with and a friendship ensues between the sometimes shy but frank Molly Patel and Newbury.

Instant Family

Mark Wahlberg and Rose Byrne add water to their new house and bam, there’s a family, just like Sea Monkeys. Well, that’s almost the plot of this ridiculous family movie about a couple that throws themselves into fostering kids.

In a bid to fill their lives, married couple Pete and Ellie Wagner decide to adopt Lizzie but must also adopt her two siblings. What ensues is a wild ride of sudden parenthood with kids from three different age groups and a whole lot of teenage angst.