Director: Peter Benson
Five holiday seasons, one Chicago catering company, and two people who keep missing their moment: that is the setup driving "The 5 Year Christmas Party."
What is The 5 Year Christmas Party about?
Alice and Max first meet as rivals from the same theater school before their paths cross again at a catering company's annual Christmas party. Every year for five years, the two are thrown back together for the same holiday event, and every year the spark between them grows a little stronger while the timing works against them. Jobs change, relationships come and go, and neither one quite says what they mean, until the company's last holiday party forces both of them to stop stalling and admit how they actually feel.
Cast & crew
Katie Findlay and Jordan Fisher play Alice and Max across the film's five-year span, carrying most of the comedy and the will-they-won't-they tension between them. Peter Benson directs a supporting cast that includes Zenia Marshall, Katrina Reynolds, and Brenda Crichlow, filling out the catering company's world with the kind of recurring coworkers who notice the couple's chemistry long before Alice and Max do.
Context & significance
As a holiday romantic comedy told in five yearly chapters, "The 5 Year Christmas Party" leans on a structure familiar from other Christmas-set television films while using the repeated party setting to track how much its two leads change year over year. The format lets small details recur with new meaning each holiday season, from old jokes to unfinished conversations, without needing a long runtime to cover real passage of time.
Where & how to watch
"The 5 Year Christmas Party" streams on K-Time with a free account login, and its film page can be read without signing in first. K-Time's Farsi-language interface makes it easy for Persian-speaking audiences around the world to find seasonal comedies like this one alongside the rest of the catalog.