Start the holiday on a high note.
Zoey's Extraordinary Christmas is a 2021 Musical Dramedy Film, serving both as The Movie and potential Grand Finale of Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist. Directed by Austin Winsberg (who also directed the Pilot), and written by Sam Laybourne and Samantha Mcintyre, the film stars Jane Levy, Skylar Astin, Alex Newell, Bernadette Peters, and Mary Steenburgen.On her first holiday without her father, Zoey (Levy) wants to create a magical Christmas for her family just like the ones Mitch used to do. At the same time, she continues to struggle with her ability to see people's innermost thoughts and feelings expressed through pop musical dance numbers, an ability her boyfriend Max has also mysteriously gained.
While the original show aired on NBC, the film adaptation was produced by the Roku Channel.
Tropes in this film include:
- Brought Down to Normal: After Max finally understands what a challenge the musical powers have been for Zoey, his own abilities leave, fading away towards the end of their "Time After Time" duet heart song in the climax.
- Christmas Episode: Naturally. Over half of the musical numbers also use variations of popular Christmas bops, though there are several non-Christmas-related songs.
- Compressed Adaptation: The arc of Max dealing with his new powers would have gone on throughout the third season; instead, it's condensed into one movie.
- Control Freak: Zoey develops into one as she desperately tries to corral her family into recreating a perfect Christmas from her childhood. It takes a dream visit from Mitch to remind her that their Christmases together have never been perfect, and it's okay to make some new traditions after his passing.
- Crowd Song: An entire shopping mall breaks out into "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year", with Mo on lead vocals.
- Cursed with Awesome: After getting the musical powers himself, Max thinks this about Zoey's attitude towards them, telling her that he doesn't know why she's struggled with them so much and maybe he got them so he could show her they're actually the best thing ever. Zoey points out that he's been getting softballs so far, like "Umbrella" and "Cake by the Ocean", which he easily solved by giving a lady an umbrella and a bunch of students cake and directions to the ocean.
- Heroic BSoD: Max suffers a short one after his surprise invitation of Jack to Christmas Eve dinner leads to the occasion seemingly being ruined and the Clarke family singing a depressing heart song, "Wish You Were Here".Max (lying in bed in a funk): Nothing makes sense anymore.
- It's All About Me: After being disappointed in the rehearsals for Perry's daughter Amirah's Christmas pageant, Mo first takes over instruction for the kids, and ends up center stage in the actual pageant as the only one to sing more than backup vocals. Perry and many of the other parents in the audience are annoyed by this. Mo later makes it up to Amirah by letting her sing at the MaxiMo Christmas party at the end of the movie.
- The Oner: "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year" is done in a single continuous shot. It's particularly impressive when Zoey, Mo, and some shoppers descend an escalator without missing a beat.
- Pride Before a Fall: At the beginning of the movie, Max is a bit too confident in his ability to handle the musical powers and solve people's problems, and boastful about it to Zoey, even dispensing morally dubious advice to Emily and David about how to respond to their former classmate's family newsletter without having heard them sing a heart song. This attitude comes back to bite him when he invites Lumber Jack to the family Christmas Eve dinner based on hearing Maggie sing "Call Me Maybe", without telling anyone else, setting off a chain of events that leads to the snowglobe centerpiece that meant so much to Zoey being shattered, the whole family singing a painful heart song, and Max suffering a Heroic BSoD that Zoey has to snap him out of. As Zoey points out to Max when Jack shows up, she heard Maggie sing the same song, but actually talked to her about whether she was ready to date yet because experience has taught her not to jump to conclusions about how to respond to heart songs.
- Quarreling Song: From the perspective of the audience though not the characters. Discussing their Christmas plans, Zoey hears Max sing "Just the Two of Us" while Max hears Zoey sing "We Need a Little Christmas". The camera keeps cutting between the two.
- The Reveal: The season 2 finale didn't have time to establish whether Max could hear heart songs other than Zoey's, or whether Zoey still had the powers herself. It becomes clear early on in the Christmas special that he can and she does.
- This Is Gonna Suck: Zoey gets this expression when, after Mo promises to keep his Christmas spirit to himself, music starts up for a rendition of "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year."
