This
movie wasn’t as bad as I was expecting, which sounds like faint praise but I do
mean it sincerely. It’s a decent enough
little holiday family film, not something I’d be likely to watch without the
incentive of the actors in it, but mostly fine for what it is.
The
recently-incarcerated Steve, paroled just before Christmas, is anxious to
reconnect with his son Tom after two years behind bars. However, a wrench is thrown into their
Christmas Eve plans when Santa Claus himself – Tom is convinced, Steve’s not so
sure – entreats them for help. Santa’s
new sleigh crashed during a test drive, and his efforts to recover his reindeer
got him arrested for trespassing. Now
locked up in the same prison Steve was in, Santa is asking for no simple
task: find the reindeer, fix the sleigh,
and bust Santa out of jail, all in time for the man in red to make his rounds
before Christmas day.
It
shouldn’t surprise you to know there’s corniness aplenty (not to mention more
reindeer fart jokes than are strictly necessary.) Some kids’ movies are amazing and others are
painful to sit through, but this one is neither – it’s decidedly so-so. Still, its heart is mainly in the right
place, it’s nicely anchored by the uneasy relationship between father and son,
and the humor can be unexpectedly sly in places. I got a genuine laugh when a cop, who, for
plot reasons, wound up being left tied up and unconscious in a van, wakes up to
the well-intentioned note, “Sorry about this – trying to save Christmas.”
There’s
also a pretty good cast overall, most notably Jim Broadbent as a pitch-perfect
Santa. The cast additionally includes The Thick of It’s Joanna Scanlan,
Stephen Graham (who played MacMaster in Parade’s
End,) and Warwick Davis – it’s virtually inevitable that you’ll find actors
with dwarfism in a Christmas movie, but in this case, he’s more like Peter
Dinklage in Elf, a little person who
has the misfortune to cross paths with someone actually from the North Pole.
Side note
– another aspect of the film I like is how it portrays inmates and
parolees. Steve is definitely a
criminal, but rather than being an inherent “bad seed,” it stems from a
colossally-poor decision that he’s trying to make up for. And while Santa is harassed by other
prisoners when he first arrives and is urged to adopt a tougher persona to get
by on the inside, the inmates are pleased when they learn of his “Santa
impression,” as they’re planning a Christmas Eve party for their visiting
families and want to do it up right. By
and large, they’re depicted as people, not walking representatives of their
crimes.
Where the
film disappoints me, more than any schmaltzy cheeseball moment or stupid fart
joke could, is in Jodie Whittaker’s character Alison. Steve’s ex-wife and Tom’s mom, Alison is
given wildly-unsympathetic treatment on behalf of the film. Keep in mind that she’s justifiably wary of
her recently-paroled, unreliable ex taking their son out for the day – she’s
worried about Tom’s emotional well-being and doesn’t want his dad to let him
down. Then, when Steve seemingly absconds
with Tom (on a secret mission from Santa, unbeknownst to Alison,) that wariness
pushes into panic.
It’s
entirely reasonable for Alison to be freaked, upset, and hellbent on getting
Tom away from Steve, given her understanding of the situation. But because we know what’s really going on, the movie doesn’t frame it that
way, and Alison becomes the hard-nosed shrew with no sense of the magic of
Christmas who won’t give decent-guy Steve a break. It’s really disheartening to see.
Accent Watch
A
decent-sounding RP.
Recommend?
In
General
– A cautious maybe. If you’re in the
right holiday mood, it’s decent enough, especially the actual Santa-in-jail
scenes.
Jodie
Whittaker
– No. I really dislike what they do with
her character here.
Warnings
Thematic
elements and gross-out humor.
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