This Is Christmas (2022)

Director Chris Foggin is at the helm of this Christmas movie, another in a line of modern British rom-coms that add all of the festive trimmings, lots of familiar faces, and the kind of busy city life that keeps hustling and bustling without being anywhere near the misery of commuting and working in non-movieland Britain. Writer Alastair Galbraith may not have a lengthy selection of screenplay credits, but he knows how to work his premise around a great central cast.

Alfred Enoch plays Adam, a young man who holds on to the strange belief that commuters might just find their day improved if they chat to one another and communicate about their talents and lives. In fact, he believes that this applies to all people. We'd all have better lives if we just made more connections. And he's willing to throw a Christmas party for his fellow commuters to prove his point. He is helped by Emma (Kaya Scodelario), but everyone has something to bring to the occasion, whether it's a particular skill or a particular story to reveal as the third act plays out.

Although it may seem completely implausible to anyone who has experienced a long train ride through parts of London, Christmas is a time of miracles. That allows This Is Christmas to be an enjoyable and diverting piece of work. It's a complete fantasy, and that much is clear from the very beginning. Commuters DON'T want to make accidental eye contact with one another, let alone start conversing and forging meaningful connections. 

Enoch is a likeable lead, all good manners and good intentions. Scodelario is very good opposite him, feeling like a natural pairing even while both leads have partners who need to be moved out of the picture before everything can be fully consummated (not in THAT way, this is still a Christmas movie, after all). Timothy Spall handles a Liverpudlian accent well enough, and his story pairs him with young Jack Donoghue, both doing much better in the scenes they share than the few moments they go solo, and Joanna Scanlan, Ben Miller, Sarah Niles, and Clinton Liberty do good work when they get to add to the intertwining story strands. There's also a welcome, if far too small, role for Steve Oram, playing a conductor who helps the commuters initially band together against "a common enemy".

It may be a bit overlong at 111 minutes, and some of the more bitter moments feel a bit too spiky for this kind of thing, but This Is Christmas is, overall, a safe and enjoyable bit of winter warmth to enjoy on a cold evening. It won't necessarily make it into the annual rotation for anyone planning their viewing schedule, but it's worth a watch. Once.

6/10

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