by Jake Hjort, Contributing Writer
Every year, there’s a handful of films released in November and December that strive to place themselves amongst the pantheon of holiday classics. Lately, they haven’t been succeeding, but every now and then there comes a movie that has that special something and earns a yearly rewatch. This holiday season, one of the prime contenders is That Christmas, an animated film based on several short stories written by Richard Curtis, best known as the director of Love Actually, a modern Christmas classic in its own right.
Much like Love Actually (although significantly more family friendly),this time in the small, fictitious English town of Wellington-on-Sea, That Christmas tracks several different intertwined plot lines as a historic blizzard arrives on Christmas Eve. In particular, the film follows four different children: teenager Bernie (India Brown), who wants to push back on Christmas traditions and celebrate her own way; twins Sam (Zazie Hayhurst) and Charlie (Sienna Sayer), who have differing ideas of what’s naughty and nice; and newcomer Danny (Jack Wisniewski), struggling with loneliness due to his hardworking mother (Jodie Whittaker) and deadbeat father. With a little bit of help from Santa Claus (Brian Cox), the people of Wellington-on-Sea learn to come together as a community and make this difficult Christmas one that everyone will remember.
When it comes to evaluating an animated film, I feel like you have to begin with the its visual aesthetics. Unfortunately, this is my biggest issue with That Christmas, particularly that the art direction is incredibly bland. As the directorial debut of Simon Otto, head character animator for How to Train your Dragon,I have to admit that I was expecting a bit more from the film’s design, but ultimately there’s nothing that really makes this stand out from the crowd. That being said, while my issues with the film are primarily in regard to the design, I think that the actual artistry of the animation is done really well. Movement and action feels very fluid and dynamic, and the characters, though bland, are still expressive, with the animators doing a great job portraying emotions.
Speaking of the characters and emotions, That Christmas nails the tone that I like to see in a Christmas movie. Wellington-on-Sea has that perfect cozy feeling too it, especially once the blizzard sets in — the music really helps enhance the holiday atmosphere. On top of that, my favorite Christmas films are those that take time to linger on how difficult the holidays can be for many people before wrapping things up in a nice, happy bow, and this movie does a great job balancing joy and sadness. There’s a line in the film about how Christmas is like an emotional magnifying glass, blowing up not just the positive feelings, but the negative ones as well, and that concept is well-demonstrated throughout the different stories. I also really appreciate that the film doesn’t use Santa’s magic as a deus ex machina to fix all the problems, but rather as a tool for the characters to figure out how to use to help one another.
My favorite storyline is Danny’s. His relationship with his mother is really sweet, as is his naïve innocence and crush on Sam. Through Danny we also get to meet Miss Trapper (Fiona Shaw), the strict, reserved schoolteacher feared the whole town over, who harbors a secret compassion for her students and community. Across the village, I also really liked the story of the twins, as the quiet and shy Sam tries to corral Charlie, her mischievous twin sister. Charlie is a rebellious girl viewed as a naughty kid by her parents, and Sam fears that having a naughty twin may cause issues for her when Santa comes to town, but over the course of the film, Sam comes to realize that her sister has a bigger heart and better intentions than anyone is able to realize.
Unfortunately, the third story — Bernie and her friends trying to start their own Christmas traditions — doesn’t really do anything for me. As far as I can tell, Bernie is written to be a pretty strong-headed and abrasive character, as she pushes back on the established holiday traditions, but there isn’t enough sincerity or heart to balance that out. Along with Bernie, we get a subplot, mostly used for comic relief, with her parents and their friends stuck in the blizzard in their van. Aside from a few funny moments — Rhys Darby is great voicing Bernie’s dimwitted but well-meaning father, Mr. McNutt — these stories mostly just felt like a tedious waste of time and a distraction from the characters that I actually wanted to spend more time with.
Lastly, I don’t think a review of a Christmas film could be complete without an evaluation of their rendition of jolly old Saint Nicholas. I don’t have any statistics to back it up, but I have to imagine that Santa Claus has been portrayed by more different actors than any other character in cinematic history. Honestly, I was a bit surprised by the casting of Cox, still having the image of him playing the imposing Logan Roy on Successionfresh in my mind, but he does a great job portraying the compassion and warmth that you would expect from Santa in his vocal performance. That said, aside from Cox’s performance, I didn’t love all of the choices made with Santa in That Christmas, with a more high-tech approach taken to his powers, and a single, particularly obnoxious reindeer (Guz Khan) flying his sleigh.
Now, I want to preface this by saying that I’m a bit of a Christmas nut who loves a lot of Christmas films that no one else does but, for me, I think That Christmas just might have what it takes be considered a timeless holiday classic. For starters, there’s a pretty noticeable lack of quality, feature-length animated holiday films, so I’m always eager to try and fill that gap on my December watchlist, but even aside from that, That Christmas has enough magic to stick around. Its stories have a lot of heart, some great messages to take home, and a ton of cozy holiday cheer.
Rating: High Side of Liked It
That Christmas is currently streaming on Netflix
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