- 2 days ago
Film Brain reviews this modern British version of A Christmas Carol, which is just... absolutely bizarre and misjudged. I mean, Boy George as the Ghost of Christmas Future? Oh, and it's musical.
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00:00Season's greetings and welcome to Projector and on this episode a festive favorite gets a new spin
00:05and for some reason Boy George is the ghost of Christmas future in Christmas Karma.
00:11Ishan Su played by Canal Nair is a notoriously stingy and ill-tempered businessman who loathes Christmas
00:34but on Christmas night he is visited by the ghost of his business partner Jacob Marley
00:39play by Hugh Bonneville who warns him that he'll be visited by the spirits of Christmas past present and future
00:45played by Eva Longoria, Billy Porter and Boy George respectively.
00:49Will the ghost convince Su to put behind his business and embrace Christmas?
00:55Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol might be one of the most adapted books to film ever if not the most.
01:00It's pretty easy to see why.
01:03Dickens' commentary on green capitalism particularly on inequality and children living in poverty
01:08continues to resonate even now when we're still facing many of these problems.
01:12If anything it's gotten even more stark with the rise of billionaires making that disparity between the richest and the poorest ever more vast
01:20and it's somewhat depressing that a critique of Victorian society is so relevant over 180 years after it was first published.
01:28But in terms of film and TV adaptations you've got plenty to choose from
01:33and you can pick your Scrooge from Jim Carrey, Alistair Sim, Albert Finney, Patrick Stewart, Kelsey Grammer and many others.
01:41And what's remarkable is how malleable the story is and the ways it's been riffed on and reworked over the years
01:48particularly in modern riffs like Bill Murray in Scrooge.
01:52Oh hey it's actually on my shirt right here which is a favourite of mine even if it isn't really of Bill Murray's.
01:59I was also quite partial to Ryan Reynolds and Will Ferrell and Apple TV's Spirited
02:03which hasn't quite become a festive favourite like others I've mentioned.
02:08But that doesn't mean that all takes on A Christmas Carol are good.
02:11There was a terrible animated film with Kate Winslet and Nicolas Cage
02:15and for my money the absolute worst version of it was Stephen Knight's recent BBC adaptation with Guy Pearce
02:21which was deeply mean-spirited and unpleasant trying to be pointlessly edgy.
02:26Enter Grinda Charder who gives us the latest modern take on the Dickens story.
02:30She's of course best known for Bend It Like Beckham and you might recall that I actually quite enjoyed her last film
02:35The Springsteen Spire Blinded by the Light.
02:38This is her first film in six years and in the past she's been no stranger doing modern updates on classic literature
02:44with an Asian spin as she's had success with the Austin riff Bride and Prejudice.
02:49And you can clearly see what the intention behind Christmas Karma is.
02:53It wants to be a proudly British and multicultural update to the story
02:57and at a time where the UK is so divided and there's so much underlying prejudice being whipped up
03:03this feels like the right moment for this exact version of the story if done well.
03:08So it's deeply unfortunate that it isn't.
03:11Christmas Karma isn't the worst version of this story but it's also wildly misjudged.
03:18The sad part is the setup is quite a brilliant idea.
03:21If you're going to tell something that has been adapted so many times before
03:24you need to have some sort of angle on it and I think this does.
03:29This version makes Scrooge or Sood as he's known here into a first generation immigrant
03:34and his dislike of Christmas stems from his own anger and his sense of displacement
03:38that he takes out upon everyone else.
03:41Like Scrooge typically he's cocooned himself in his wealth but that's only made himself more isolated.
03:47You see it in his interactions with everyone from his nephew Raj who is this film's version of Fred
03:52who he declines to go to his Christmas party and resents him marrying a white British woman
03:57to berating Indian shopkeeper Singh by Benatind Ganatra for his poor business sense
04:02in buying excessive Christmas stock that he won't be able to sell after the holiday.
04:07Both are expressions of misplaced anger directed towards everyone else in his general vicinity.
04:13There's also just the fact that our main character is a Muslim in a Christmas film
04:16and this is definitely a secular film where it's less about Christmas as a religious holiday
04:21and more as a tradition that brings people and families together from all different backgrounds
04:26to celebrate and be unified.
04:29Charter's script tries to be faithful to the spirit and structure of Dickens' source material
04:33even quoting the original lines on several occasions
04:36but soon arguably takes the Scrooge-ian miseless to a whole other level.
04:42His penny-pinching means not only does his office staff have to work in cold conditions
04:46with their thermostat locked at 15 degrees C
04:50huddling under coats and gloves just to keep warm
04:53which surely must be illegal.
04:55He then fires the entire office on Christmas Eve when they disobey that.
05:00Likewise, he also forces housekeeper Mrs. Joshi, plumber Shabu Kapoor
05:04to work in the dark so that she doesn't put up his electricity bill.
05:08If anything, this somewhat over-eggs things
05:10as the point of the story is to ultimately redeem Scrooge
05:13and that typically works best when the character is actually someone you want to see have redemption.
05:19It's a difficult balance
05:20but someone like Bill Murray makes his grumpiness amusing
05:24even though he's petty and vindictive.
05:26It's kind of funny.
05:28Sue just comes across as unpleasant and cruel
05:31especially in scene after scene of him
05:34insulting people for about half an hour before the ghosts even show up.
05:39Of course, it doesn't help that Canal Nair is severely miscast in the lead role
05:43best known for his past in The Big Bang Theory
05:45at just 44
05:46he's way too young to be playing someone in their 60s or 70s
05:50no matter how much grey is thrown into his hair
05:52or how low he makes his voice.
05:55Bilal Hasna plays the younger adult version of Sue in flashbacks
05:58and he's only 18 years or so younger than Nair
06:01who still looks young enough that he could have played the character in his 20s if he wanted to.
06:05But the main problem is that Nair is visibly struggling
06:08especially with the more emotional parts of the story
06:11and in the dramatic moments that's very apparent.
06:14He feels like Nair is trying so hard to play old
06:17that he's stiff in a completely different sense than intended.
06:21He's really unconvincing most of the time with frankly wooden line deliveries.
06:26It's rather telling that he seems most relaxed at the end of the film
06:30when Sue is trying to make up for his behaviour
06:33and Nair is basically playing him like his Big Bang Theory character
06:37and is exuberant and animated and his voice is high
06:40and he just stops playing him as an old man completely.
06:44Nair might be the only Scrooge who is better at playing the redeemed character than the nasty one.
06:50But even the angle he's sued ultimately ends up being misjudged
06:53when we finally get a look at his backstory with the Ghost of Christmas Past
06:57revealing that he came to Britain during the Asian expulsion from Uganda by Idi Amin.
07:02This might be the first Christmas film in history
07:04to feature archival footage of notorious Ugandan dictator Idi Amin
07:09and I'm not sure that's a combination we ever needed.
07:13I commend Charter for trying to cover a historical moment that is so rarely seen discussed
07:17but it's one the movie cannot hold.
07:20It feels wildly out of place in the context of what's supposed to be a big uplifting festive movie
07:26and honestly it's simply too heavy for it.
07:30It's ultimately rather depressing.
07:32It's a huge bit of tonal whiplash to have a movie where Danny Dyer keeps popping up as a singing cabbie
07:39and maybe in a more serious-minded film it wouldn't have felt so wrong as it does here.
07:45It's very strange because this section covering Sood's past is arguably the strongest portion of it
07:52with the film's most attuned sense of cultural identity
07:55and yet it is also undeniably the most problematic.
08:00It's maybe not a surprise when I say that watching the film
08:03I found it to be a strangely uncomfortable experience.
08:07I also think the tone is off in general.
08:09There's another scene in this section where Sood is subjected to a hate attack in an alley
08:14and the scene is set to Boy George singing over it.
08:17To say the visuals and the music are wildly mismatched would be an understatement.
08:23And it isn't the only time because what absolutely sinks this is the fact it's a musical
08:28and oh boy it is rough to sit through a bad musical
08:32and Christmas Karma is especially poor in its execution.
08:36When I think of someone to lead a wide array of musical styles and genres
08:40my first choice probably wouldn't be Gary Barlow of Take That Fame.
08:46The songs are mostly straight-up bad with hugely on-the-nose lyrics
08:51where they're not rhyming Karma with, um, Karma.
08:55I could tell I was going to have a rough time from the second song in
08:58when Sue's office workers start rapping about their situation
09:02which triggered my involuntary cringe reflex
09:04especially when they start breakdancing on the floor.
09:07That's why I started to notice just how terrible the lip-syncing is
09:11even worse than an old episode of Top of the Pops.
09:14In contrast to many movies these days which record their vocals live on set
09:18and that comes with drawbacks of its own
09:20as people who sat through Les Miserables and Cats will tell you
09:23Christmas Karma pre-recorded their tracks.
09:26But watching Ben Bailey Smith sounds like he's spitting bars into a studio microphone
09:31but visually he's just casually muttering into someone's ear
09:35downright disorientated my senses.
09:38And he's not the only one.
09:39Pixie Lott plays Mrs. Cratchit
09:41the wife of Sue's most loyal worker Bob Cratchit
09:44played by Leo Sutter
09:45and the same thing happens multiple times during her number
09:49The Boy Inside the Man.
09:51Yeah, even the title is bad in that case.
09:54Where it isn't so much that the words are not syncing up with her mouth
09:57but more the way that she's saying them
10:00it's downright bizarre
10:01it's quite hard to describe without actually seeing it.
10:05Oh, and I have to mention
10:06while we're talking about the Cratchits
10:08of course there's a tiny Tim
10:10who in this version
10:11I kid you not
10:12doesn't just say
10:13God bless everyone!
10:16He also exclaims
10:17and God bless the NHS!
10:20I mean, I agree with the sentiment
10:22but if I cringed any harder
10:24my face would turn into my bum hole.
10:27But anyway, back to the music
10:29and it's genuinely hard to fathom how a movie
10:31with so many well-known musical talents
10:33both in front and behind the camera
10:35that such a major part of the film
10:37has turned out so poorly
10:39and it isn't even just the syncing
10:41sometimes the way the lyrics are mixed
10:43means they get completely lost amidst the music
10:46although that might actually be doing them a favour in that case
10:49but also just the way the numbers are staged as well
10:52clearly the film was working on an extremely tight budget
10:55and it doesn't really help that the British stiff upper lip
10:58means that we are terrible at cutting loose
11:01but the musical numbers are very awkwardly done
11:05maybe the greatest example of this
11:07is when they try to do a Bollywood style musical number
11:10at Raj's Christmas party
11:11and when you think of that
11:12you think of big grand epic spectacle
11:15lots of colour and vibrancy everywhere
11:17and they try to do that
11:19with about 20 or 30 people
11:21stuffed into a front living room like sardines
11:25it's so claustrophobic
11:27they look like they can hardly move
11:29let alone dance
11:30why didn't they just open things up somehow
11:33to let them perform?
11:35At least Barlow has a bit of self-awareness
11:37as he pops up with Charter
11:38in behind-the-scenes footage and outtakes
11:40during the credits
11:41and jokingly says
11:42there's no one left in the cinema right now
11:44they've all left
11:46which is pretty funny
11:47and maybe a bit more accurate than intended
11:50worse the songs also badly hamper the pacing as well
11:54the film opens with three songs
11:56almost back to back with each other
11:58and that massively slows down the film's opening stretch
12:01it feels like it takes the film a very long time
12:04to get to the ghost
12:05especially for a story that almost everyone is familiar with already
12:08mostly because these songs focus on the side characters
12:12instead of sued
12:14the net result of that
12:15is that when the main portion of the story arrives
12:18you know the actual engine of the story
12:20it feels somewhat rushed through
12:22and speaking of those ghosts
12:24there likewise some very strange choices
12:27Hugh Bonneville appears very briefly as Marley
12:30and is almost entirely unrecognizable
12:33as his ghost form is a digital double rather than makeup
12:36which might account for why his scene is over
12:39so quickly in this incarnation
12:40because he's probably blowing through most of the budget
12:44Eva Longoria's Ghost of Christmas Past is clearly a play on the Day of the Dead
12:48complete with a full-blown mariachi band
12:51which is just odd for a British film
12:53I know the film is purposefully a mixing pot of cultures
12:56but the Mexican holiday isn't as well known in the UK
13:00so it comes a bit out of left field
13:03and Longoria herself looks like she isn't quite certain how she got here
13:07complete with a glowing projector head
13:09it's also very clear that Longoria especially only had very limited availability
13:15because she is quite obviously green screened into a few of the Uganda scenes
13:20because we either hear her lines off camera
13:22or we'll suddenly cut to her in a really tight closer
13:25with the background CGI'd in
13:27we even see the green screen in the BTS at the end
13:30it does feel like Longoria and Billy Porter are largely here
13:34so it'll be easier to export to America
13:37but to Porter's credit
13:38when his time does come on screen
13:40no matter how briefly
13:42it works as a musical
13:44Porter has charisma to spare
13:47and his big gospel number is by far the best performed and staged number in the entire film
13:52he almost single-handedly demonstrates
13:55the poise and confidence that is lacking elsewhere
13:58this is literally his camp as Christmas
14:00and Porter embraces that as the showman he is
14:04unfortunately he isn't given nearly enough screen time in my opinion
14:08and as for boy George as the ghost of Christmas future
14:11yes really
14:13I think he's keenly aware that he's not an actor
14:16because he doesn't have any actual lines
14:18instead he only sings during the songs
14:21in particular the several versions of Pain of the Past
14:25which go throughout the entire film
14:27well before he physically turns up
14:30even still
14:30it is a bizarre casting choice for the ages
14:33looking uncomfortable under his massive cape
14:35scarred makeup
14:36and with metal claws for hands
14:39and it's more likely to provoke cries of absolute bewilderment from the audience
14:43going
14:44is that really boy George?
14:46yep
14:47it sure is
14:49is Christmas Karma the worst British festive movie?
14:52no
14:53not when Nativity 3 Dude Where's My Donkey exists
14:57but it isn't very good
14:59honestly
15:00if they drop the musical angle
15:02and focus more on the character's cultural identity
15:04I think it would have been better
15:06but this is honestly badly misjudged
15:09and plays out cheap
15:10and sloppily on screen
15:13especially in the special effects department
15:15I do have to admit though
15:17it wasn't the kind of bad film
15:19that I get a lot of joy from
15:20because I think its heart is so clearly in the right place
15:24it's so damn well intentioned
15:26and they clearly had a lot of fun making it
15:28from the behind the scenes sing-along that we see in the credits
15:31I just felt kind of sad for everyone
15:34that this was the end result
15:36this is certainly one of the weakest versions of Dickens' Tale
15:39and its ambition is well beyond its grasp
15:42the result is just a mess
15:44despite the tans involved
15:46Christmas Karma
15:47it's a big old turkey
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16:11I'm Matthew Burke
16:12saying Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays
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