TThe return of Lindsay Lohan, redefining herself as a movie star rather than a tabloid joke, coincided with Netflix’s annual rebranding as a home for cheap and cheerful holiday fodder that’s easy to make and easy to devour. It was a smart, low-stakes, high-flash comeback, as 2022’s “Falling into Christmas,” her first starring role in nearly a decade, was a natural hit during the streamer’s seasonal rush.

It almost didn’t matter that it wasn’t very good, it wasn’t Really In fact, it was just proof that Lohan still had the same appeal that made her a star in the first place. But her next film with Netflix wasn’t a walk in the park – the truly awful “Irish Wish” – and suddenly her association with the streamer felt less like a reboot and more like a long pause that trapped her in a mode she absolutely had to go through away from (next year’s Freaky Friday sequel should help with that). Her third and contractually final outing with the platform is the best of them all, but only because the bar is set so low we can’t even watch it, not just for Lohan’s latest series, but for Netflix’s marquee body of work as a whole.

To its credit, “Our Little Secret” feels less like another attempt to recycle the junkie Hallmark formula and more like one trying to emulate a more sophisticated comedy from the 2000s. There are shades of “Meet the Parents” and “Four Christmases” and even a director of that era at the helm, Stephen Herek, who worked with stars like Mark Wahlberg, Angelina Jolie and Tommy Lee Jones in the same decade. It’s not as shiny or raunchy as last year’s surprise hit “Anyone But You,” but it tries to appeal to the same audience, namely those who grew up on slightly more ambitious studio rom-coms. Like many of these films, this is all about a deception, and like Anyone But You, this is a film so poorly directed that you wonder why they even bothered , to lie.

It begins in 2014 when Avery (Lohan) and her boyfriend Logan (Ian Harding) argue at her surprise going away party. She moves to London and in a desperate attempt to stop her from leaving, Logan proposes. She says no and he storms off. A decade later, both of them are traveling with new partners and traveling out of town on vacation. For the first time, they’ll both meet their other half’s parents, but in a twist that leaves us with a lot of questions from Santa, they find out they’re spending Christmas with the same family. Their partners are siblings and after a “Wait, why?” discussion, they decide not to tell anyone that they were ever together.

It’s a decision that never really makes sense, but leads the couple on a far-fetched journey filled with accidentally consumed weed gummies, fake dog stomach pumping, underage drinking, blackmail, and embarrassing church speeches. While none of it is as funny as it should be (the film really isn’t that funny), it’s just entertaining enough thanks to the brisk pace and spirited cast. There’s more talent around the edges than we’re used to seeing here, with former “Saturday Night Live” cast members Tim Meadows, Chris Parnell and one-season cast member Jon Rudnitsky; Scrubs stalwart and Birth/Rebirth star Judy Reyes; Dan Bucatinsky of Scandal and The Comeback; Henry Czerny from Mission: Impossible and, most rewardingly, Kristin Chenoweth. The “Wicked” star, who plays a villainous, “Real Housewives”-inspired mother, gives the film serious oomph every time he’s on screen, playing well within her wheelhouse (she’s also appeared in marquee comedies like “Holidate” from Netflix and the aforementioned “Four Christmases”), adds spice to the whole thing but can often be a boring little thing.

Lohan and Harding are reasonably decent in their banter – the latter has a Seth MacFarlane-esque elasticity that really works here – but first-time writer Hailey DeDominicis’ script isn’t clever or inventive enough to really challenge them. As I close out this year, I pray that no comedy in 2025, or really ever again, is based on a scene in which a character accidentally eats edibles, an eye-rollingly overused phrase that also implies that cannabis is a terrible hallucinogen. Instead, you’re better off relying on some jelly beans when you watch Our Little Secret, a perfectly fitting holiday comedy that could use a little boost.