It’s the most wonderful time of the year: holiday movie season. With temperatures cooling and days getting shorter, what better way to spend an evening than by cosying up with loved ones for some heart warming laughs?




In Best. Christmas. Ever!, Brandy Norwood (the actor and musician better known as Brandy) and Heather Graham bring the cheer — and the carols! The Christmas comedy follows two long time frenemies who are reunited over the holidays in a twist of fate. Every Christmas, Jackie (Brandy) sends a boastful holiday newsletter that makes her old college friend Charlotte (Graham) feel like a lump of coal. But when Charlotte lands on Jackie’s snowy doorstep just days before Christmas, she seizes the opportunity to prove her old friend’s life can’t possibly be that perfect. Will the two overcome their differences and find joy in the holidays? “It’s not as easy as it sounds, though,” director Mary Lambert tells Tucum. “And I think for me, the movie tries to say that. Let’s find something to laugh at in all this craziness.” 




Brandy shines as the generous and incredibly kind Jackie Jennings, who opens her home to her college friends Charlotte (Graham) and Rob Sanders (Jason Biggs) when they mistakenly end up on her snowy doorstep just days before Christmas. Now Charlotte has to figure out how to put aside her complicated feelings about Jackie and get into the holiday spirit. 


Lambert, who also directed A Castle for Christmas, says she loved that the story was driven by two powerful women and found that Brandy and Graham really complemented one another in real life. “It was actually a lot of fun because their characters are so different in the movie,” she says.



“We hit it off right away,” Brandy tells Tulum about working with Graham. “I absolutely loved Heather’s energy. I felt so comfortable and I felt like I could be myself. It was something that was real and authentic between us.”


Likewise, Graham has nothing but praise for her co-star. “Brandy shows up like, ‘I’m going to give my whole heart and soul and I am open to connect with you, Heather, as a person, as well as your character,’ ” she says. Addressing Brandy directly, she adds: “You give a lot. You show up as your whole beautiful energy. You’re just so generous. [and] I feel like you really gave so much, not only to the scenes that you were in, but just in spending time with me. And then you gave me a badass purse, which I still have in my closet.”