I have survived A Very British Christmas, a film which promises festive British charm and instead delivers (exactly) ninety of plaid, mediocrity, and subtitles that appear to have been generated by a man in a hurry with a poor grasp of English.
Call this a bonus review, if you will. I promised that tomorrow’s scheduled review would be it, and really, I should have stopped there. But I found myself with a few hours spare on Christmas Eve and thought ‘why not?.
Why not indeed.
The plot is simple enough.
Jessica, an award-winning American soprano with a Very Important Career, needs to be in Vienna for a concert. Unfortunately she finds herself in an undisclosed airport in the North of England, with a cancelled transfer. She is told by some kind of 1850s Station Master she can find a hotel if she takes a train and travels two stops, but she falls asleep on a steam train – you don’t see many of those attached to airports, even in the north, it has to be said – and wakes up in Knaresborough.
From there, she wanders into a coffee shop, meets another deeply annoying American who tells her ‘welcome to Narrowsboro’, and finds her a place to crash in a failing holiday park.
There she is swiftly absorbed into the life of Andrew, the owner. Andrew conveniently happens to be a widower, and he paints, wears an alarming number of checked shirts, and appears to have wandered in from Essex by mistake.
The holiday park is empty, obviously.
A nasty neighbour – Ben – is trying to force Andrew to sell up to a mining company because this film believes mining is something that still casually happens in picturesque Yorkshire villages without planning permission or riots. Ben is all over this but Andrew alone stands in their way. He is powered by grief for his dead wife, and a sideline business making Christmas angels that the locals inexplicably adore.
Enter Katie, his daughter, who may be the only actual northerner on set and who immediately decides that Jessica should be her new mum for Christmas. This is presented as heartwarming rather than deeply unsettling. Katie calls Jessica ‘sweetheart’, which no British child has ever done unless they happen to be 67 and smoking outside a working men’s club.
Jessica, meanwhile, has a job that requires her to be constantly travelling, which the film uses as shorthand for sad and alone. No family, no boyfriend. Sucks to be her. She has coats though. So many coats, in her stupid tiny bag.
She also keeps a diary, which is extremely helpful because it means we never have to rely on acting to understand her feelings. She simply tells us. Repeatedly. In writing.
Andrew is mean and moody about her entirely sensible ideas to make the holiday park more appealing. Their romance progresses at speed. Touching hands. An interrupted kiss by the neighbour/villain Ben, who eventually redeems himself by turning up with a baby and deciding not to sell his land to the mining company after all.
Christmas magic.
The Britishness in this film is largely confined to the landscape.
It is undeniably pretty if you enjoy scenic Yorkshire shots. Everything else feels very generic. The accents wander. The dialogue sounds like it has been translated into English and then back again for luck. At one point a town crier gives Jessica an emotional farewell like she’s cured a plague, despite having been there for about five minutes.
And then there are the subtitles.
Dear God, the subtitles.
It has been noted by some followers of this ridiculous Christmas Film Review Endurance Test that I watch films with subtitles and yes, I do. I struggle sometimes with auditory processing/paying attention and they make it about 34% more likely I’ll be able to follow along. But not this time.
Highlights include turning “chivalrous gentleman” into “shit horse, Gemma”, which alone deserves a BAFTA for accidental comedy. Whoever did the captions was clearly fighting for their life and lost.
My favourite bit, though: Jessica is meant to be an award-winning soprano, which becomes particularly funny at the end when she performs in a carol service and you cannot hear her at all. No solo. No moment. Just polite miming in a group hymn. If you are going to build an entire character around being incredibly talented, you do have to let us hear it at least once.
Andrew, unfortunately, cannot act.
I don’t say this lightly. He delivers lines like he is seeing them for the first time and resenting every second of it. Any emotional weight is carried by his plaid shirts.
In the final act, Jessica heroically abandons America, her career nearly ends, then un-ends, and everyone agrees that she is the town’s Christmas angel. The mine is stopped. The park is saved. Love wins. Snow falls courtesy of what looks like an Instagram filter.
This film has four out of five stars on Prime, which I can only assume were awarded by people who had it on in the background while wrapping presents and occasionally glanced up at a viaduct, or maybe Americans.
It is not Very British.
It is not very good. It is very boring, very plaid, and mercifully over.
I need a lie down.
Rating: 2/10. On the upside, it was over in 90 minutes. On the downside, what the fuck was that.
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You can also see my Amazon wish list here.