Christmas Karma (2025)

While there are good and bad things in Christmas Karma, one of my favourite things wasn't really to do with the film itself. I was most amused the the potential reaction to the film by red-faced "patriots" who might find their noses put out of joint as they started to moan about "bloody foreigners, coming over here, and repurposing our classic Dickensian Christmas tales." Considering the constant attempts to get everyone worked up over some (non-existent) war on Christmas, and considering the recent extra toxicity surrounding discussions on immigration, asylum seekers, and national identity, Christmas Karma feels almost deliciously well-timed.

You know the story, which means I can just go through the main players. Kunal Nayyar plays Eshaan Sood (uttering "Bakwaas!" as the Hindi/Urdu equivalent of "Bah, humbug!"). Leo Suter and Pixie Lott are Bob and Mary Cratchit, respectively, complete with a set of children that includes a Tiny Tim (Freddie Marshall-Ellis). Danny Dyer is a black cab driver who helps to bookend things, Eva Longoria is the Ghost Of Christmas Past, Billy Porter is the Ghost Of Christmas Present, and, ummmm, Boy George is the Karma Chamel . . . I mean . . . the Ghost Of Christmas Future. Hugh Bonneville is hard to recognise as Marley, Allan Corduner is Mr. Fezzywig, and Charithra Chandran is a lost love named Bea Fernandez.

Adapted from the source material and directed by Gurinder Chadha, Christmas Karma doesn't get off to the best start. It feels a bit clumsy, and may well make others cringe as I did. The songs aren't great, which is an extra stumbling block for a musical, despite the whole thing being worked on by Gary Barlow, Shaznay Lewis (also onscreen very briefly), and Nitin Sawhney, and there are some major weak spots in the casting of the supporting players. Things pick up once Sood is whisked away by the Ghost Of Christmas Past though, and the use of the familiar tale to explore the immigrant experience, as well as wealth disparity, allows for everything to feel like a very worthwhile wander back through this well-trodden path. Then it sadly gets stuck again when Boy George appears and just looks as if he's loitering around until enough people notice that he's sulking.

It's always clear to see what Chadha is aiming for, which makes it even more of a shame when a few of the sequences just don't work, either due to the cast, the staging of a musical number, or just the familiarity of certain moments working against it. While I don't remember any of the tunes right now, there is at least one decent number in the beginning, middle, and end of this. That helps, and it's interesting that it's the more uplifting and celebratory songs that work best, perhaps due to them requiring some more choreography and . . . fun.  

It's a bit jarring to see Nayyar playing older than his actual age, and he is unsteady in the earliest scenes when he has to be miserly and mean without viewers seeing any of the background, but the performance really starts to work better once Sood is free of normal laws of space and time. Suter, Lott, and Marshall-Ellis aren't very good, I'm sorry to say, and that makes this particular incarnation of the Cratchit family a bit harder to care for than many others we've seen over the years. Longoria is fun, Porter brings some essential colour and joie de vivre to his role, and Dyer at least feels like a standard cheeky London cab driver. Chandran is very good in her role, aka the one who got away, and there are a lot of cast members with less screentime delivering very good work as they help to show a backstory that involves our lead being forcibly wrenched from his home in Uganda to start life anew here in Britain.

This isn't a new classic, compared to other Christmas movies and compared to other interpretations of A Christmas Carol, but it's a good attempt to mix the old and the new, and the way it reworks the backstory of the main character is admirable. I would rewatch it, but only if others had decided to hijack my TV for a couple of hours.

6/10

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Netflix And Chill: I Came By (2022)

Directed by Babak Anvari, who also gave us the excellent Under The Shadow (AND the very enjoyable Wounds), I Came By is a slick and intermittently enjoyable thriller, based on a story by Anvari and written by Namsi Khan. It has one problem, but that problem is enough to unsettle the whole thing, sadly, and I'll get to it soon enough.

George MacKay is Toby Nealey, a young graffiti artist who enjoys spending his time breaking into the homes of the rich and powerful, tagging their walls with the message of "I came by", and proudly watching his work appear on local news. He's helped in his endeavours by Jay (Percelle Ascott), but the two part ways when Jay finds out that he is about to be a dad. Determined not to stop his spray-painting protests, Toby ends up in the home of Hector Blake (Hugh Bonneville), a retired judge. Blake is still very friendly with people high up in the local police force, and he's the sort of person you expect to be a pillar of the community. But he also has a very dark secret, one that leaves Toby with a hell of a dilemma. This also drags his mother, Lizzie (Kelly Macdonald), into things, despite the fact that she has previously been unaware of Toby's graffiti campaign.

MacKay is okay in his role, although his performance is sorely weighed down by an accent that seems to have been taught to him by Ali G. Ascott is also okay in his role, although his performance is slightly weighed down by the script. Macdonald is in the same boat as Ascott, but she does slightly better, as you might expect from Macdonald. The star is Bonneville though, playing the villain of the piece with aplomb. Always generally maintaining an air of composure and civility, Bonneville's character is all the more fun because of his confidence. Whatever he may or may not be up to, he acts like someone who knows they will never have to worry about receiving any punishment.

In amongst the standard thriller moments, and they're often moments that we've seen in many other movies, there are some interesting ideas in here about class, about the futility of protesting with gestures that aren't backed up by actions, and the danger of self-doubt and procrastination just because you view yourself as someone unable to effect ANY change.

I did mention that one big problem though, the one that unsettles the whole film, and I'm sure you're all dying to know what that is. There's no central protagonist. A film like this needs a central protagonist, but we don't get that. I am sure Khan and Anvari thought they were making the film even more interesting, it's certainly an unusual approach, but it just ends up distancing viewers from the onscreen events. It's hard to care for anyone when you realise they may disappear from the plot at any time, only to then be replaced by a less interesting character given the nominal lead role for a while.

I can easily imagine people liking this quite a bit more than I did, but I wouldn't be surprised if many felt the same way. That one big problem is a BIG problem, and even people not thinking about it consciously may well get to the end of the film and wonder why they never felt fully engaged with the plot. I couldn't bring myself to recommend it, unless you can dismiss the rest of the movie and just enjoy the fantastic turn from Bonneville.

4/10

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Netflix And Chill: Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey (2020)

An old-fashioned musical for Christmas, that's what Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey is, and it's all the better for it. Writer-director David E. Talbert has delivered something that feels like a wonderful, comforting, pop-up book, and this has immediately become a film I can see myself wanting to visit every time December comes around.

Jeronicus Jangle is a kind and brilliant inventor. His latest toy, a small matador doll (Diego, voiced by Ricky Martin), will be the masterpiece that secures his name, and financial well-being. But Diego convinces the inventor's assistant, Gustafson, to take him away, along with a notebook full of invention ideas. It's then time to move forward thirty years, having seen Jeronicus lose his wife, grow estranged from his daughter, Jessica, and fail to recapture his spark of genius. Jessica has had her own child, Journey (Madalen Mills), and she ends up heading off to meet her grandfather (now played by Forest Whitaker). Journey and Jeronicus are quite similar in the way their brains see the world, much to the delight of young helper, Edison (Kieron L. Dyer). But the pressure is on to come up with a great invention and save the store, especially as Gustafson (now played by Keegan-Michael Key) continues to go from success to success, all thanks to that impressive notebook.

This has absolutely everything you could want from any Christmas movie looking to become a new firm favourite. The characters are memorable, the musical numbers are enjoyable, and well-choreographed, there are some great set-pieces, and everything takes part in a small, snow-covered, town that could easily be pictured on some classic Christmas-themed jigsaw puzzle.

Although not someone you may think of as being comfortable in this kind of role, Whitaker is a real delight. His character is a "bah, humbug" type, but more understandably so, due to the misfortune that has befallen him over the years. He may not be a natural for the moments of song, but that just makes it all better, because his character isn't inclined to want to sing beautiful melodies. Mills shines in her role, whether wandering around on her own or getting under her grandfather's feet, and I hope we see her build a decent little filmography in the next few years. Dyer is equally good, and enjoyably wide-eyed and impressed by so much of what he sees around him. Key and Martin do well as the main villains, a perfect combination of ruthlessness and comic incompetence (struggling to come up with another big idea when the notebook has been used up), and Lisa Davina Phillip is a real treat in the role of Ms. Johnston, a lady who delivers post and makes it clear that she'd like to find Jeronicus under some mistletoe and grab a kiss from him.

There are a few different lessons here, a main one being about patience, the whole story is framed by a wraparound that has a grandmother (Phylicia Rashad) talking to her grandchildren, and you get musical contributions from Philip Lawrence, John Legend, and Usher, to name a few. It's very hard to find something to criticise. I guess it's a bit TOO twee at times, which often happens with Christmas movies, but that's it.

Talbert can be very proud of his achievement here. It's a near-perfect modern Christmas classic. 

9/10

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Paddington 2 (2017)

I try my best not to mix my own politics with film reviews, unless the films are making a strong political statement or something happens that I find so downright loathsome that I just have to say something. And yet here I am with this review of Paddington 2 and it feels as if I should start off with a bit of a statement.

Don't worry, I believe what I am about to say is actually quite bipartisan, but I suppose that really depends on how you're viewing the world around you. Because that world has been getting a bit crappier and crappier for most of the past few weeks, months, and years. Natural disasters, idiots and criminals in positions of authority, tensions between countries with nuclear weapons, business closures and job losses, murders and cowardly terrorist attacks, and the general downsizing of some of my favourite chocolate bars.

Why am I doing my best to make us all a bit depressed? Well, Paddington 2 is an undeniably fun and lovely film, but it's also the perfect kind of film to make you forget about global problems for a while, and I think the timing may be as much a key to its success as the quality of the film itself.

Returning to helm once more, after doing such a great job with the first movie, director Paul King (also co-writing again, this time with Simon Farnaby, who also has a hilarious cameo) crafts another perfect mix of comedy, sweetness, and sheer entertainment.

The plot revolves around a pop-up book. Paddington (voiced by Ben Whishaw) wants to save up his money and buy it as a great birthday gift for his Aunt Lucy. Which makes it very unfortunate when the book is stolen. And it's even more unfortunate when Paddington is mistaken for the thief, leaving him to spend some time at her majesty's leisure while the cunning thief (Hugh Grant, clearly having a blast) uses the book to decipher a code that he hopes will lead to a heap of treasure. Prison life leads Paddington to meet Knuckles McGinty (Brendan Gleeson), and an unlikely friendship develops. But is that enough to keep our little bear in good spirits while people outside the prison walls try to prove his innocence? Or will a prison break be necessary?

Watching Paddington 2, and enjoying it SO much, got me thinking about both of the Paddington films. They both have the same strengths. First of all, the cast. Most people return here to the roles that they had in the first film, and the cast includes Hugh Bonneville, Sally Hawkins, Julie Walters, Peter Capaldi, Jim Broadbent, Tom Conti, and many, many more. Some scenes are a veritable who's who of British talent. Second, this is how you update a cute character who came to prominence in what might be labelled more innocent times. Paddington Bear isn't the type of youngster who has grown up with Twitter and Facebook, he doesn't have a smartphone in his pocket, and a lot of his values are as naive as they are admirable. But keeping him that way, almost a wide-eyed innocent often wrong-footed by the world around him, makes him a great character at the heart of these stories. And the fact that he never doubts himself, the fact that he always treats everyone the same way, makes it easier to accept those reciprocating his kindness and selflessness in a way that somehow doesn't feel too schmaltzy and annoying.

There are other reasons for the films being so successful, of course. The production design, the visuals, the CGI, the music, the pacing, every aspect of the film feels like it has been given due care and consideration. The script balances out the jokes with the emotional content, nicely weighting things on one end or the other through alternating scenes, and both major elements work. And I think I already mentioned Hugh Grant. He may be portraying a very different kind of villain from the character played by Nicole Kidman in the first film, but that doesn't make him less of a threat. He's the type that you want to boo and hiss at, even while laughing at his vanity and showiness (he plays a hammy actor who hasn't starred in a hit for quite some time - at least those costumes he has will help him in a variety of different disguises).

I haven't taken the time to rattle through the entire cast and sing their praises because this is an ensemble piece that brings the best out of everyone, whether they're onscreen for ten seconds or one hundred minutes. You don't view Hawkins, Bonneville, and co. as the supporting cast. You view them as the Browns. You don't spend the film contemplating how good Whishaw is in his voice role, you just accept that he's Paddington. And so on.

There's not much more I can say about it. I don't agree with some who think this sequel is superior to the first movie, but I couldn't say that it's inferior either. I rate both the same, and recommend picking up a nice double-bill immediately if you've somehow avoided either film until now. Buy the films, clear your schedules, make yourself a nice plate of marmalade sandwiches, and then sit down and press play. You'll thank me for it.

9/10

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Paddington (2014)

I've never read any of the original Paddington Bear stories, but I did grow up watching some of the delightful stop-motion TV episodes, narrated by Michael Hordern. I liked the little bear, initially because he was an identifiable figure (he is, after all, a small, curious child with an addiction to a certain type of sandwich), but later on I viewed him with enduring affection because he was a quintessentially charming British creation. Despite hailing from deepest, darkest Peru, Paddington is as synonymous with the UK as red telephone boxes, a good cup of tea, and people who will do anything to avoid social embarrassment.

And it is this quaint, and largely bygone, view of Britain that makes Paddington such a great success on the big screen. It celebrates many of our idiosyncracies, while also viewing them with the look of puzzlement that they probably deserve.

The basic plot sees Paddington (voiced by Ben Whishaw) arriving here on our shores and hoping to find a new family. He is eventually approached by the Browns, ending up being allowed to share their home until he finds somewhere else to settle. While making many strange new discoveries, Paddington causes numerous accidents (some minor, some pretty big). He soon starts to outstay his welcome. Meanwhile, a taxidermist named Millicent (Nicole Kidman) finds out about this rare beast arriving in the UK and wants to add him to her collection.

Directed by Paul King, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Hamish McColl, this is the very definition of fun for all the family. Kids will love the central character and many of the jokes. Adults will also enjoy many of the jokes, while also being able to spot a myriad of subtler gags and references strewn throughout the film (a personal favourite of mine involves the Brown family in a reversed "Evolution Of Man" tableau). The pacing is perfect, the rendering of Paddington feels very real, and a number of set-pieces ensure that you'll be hoping to see more antics in a sequel even as the end credits are still rolling.

Whishaw is a perfect vocal fit for the main character, helping Paddington to remain very much the furry child that still has so much to learn. The Browns are nicely portrayed by Sally Hawkins and Hugh Bonneville (as the mother and father), and Madeleine Harris and Samuel Joslin (the daughter and son). Bonneville gets to have the most fun with his role, but Hawkins also has some great little moments, while Harris and Joslin both react very differently to the presence of the little bear in their home. Julie Walters is the housekeeper who seems unfazed by anything, and even thinks that the Browns may benefit from Paddington's presence, and Peter Capaldi is a nosey neighbour, providing some more laughs in the second half of the film. This may not be the kind of film that you'd expect Kidman to do well in, but she does. Her villain is perfectly balanced, she's a genuine threat to Paddington without ever being TOO terrifying for younger viewings. And the motivation for her character is surprisingly brilliant.

With cameo appearances from many other fine British performers (Jim Broadbent, Michael Gambon and Imelda Staunton in voice form, Alice Lowe, Steve Oram, Matt Lucas, Geoffrey Palmer and Simon Farnaby being the main ones), a lively score by Nick Urata, plenty of iconic imagery and clever use of pesky pigeons, this is a film that easily proves more than just bear-able.

Oh come on, I got all this way without one groan-inducing pun. There had to be one.

9/10

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