- 7 weeks 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.
Category
😹
FunTranscript
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.
00:50Will 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. Dickens' 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 and you can pick your Scrooge from Jim Carrey,
01:35Alistair 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 which
02:04hasn'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 Gurinder Chadha who gives us the latest modern take on the Dickens story.
02:30She's of course best known for Bend It Like Beckham and
02:33you might recall that I actually quite enjoyed her last film The Springsteen inspired Blinded by the Light.
02:38This is her first film in six years and in the past she's been no stranger doing modern
02:43updates on classic literature with 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
03:25you need to have some sort of angle on it.
03:27And I think this does.
03:29This version makes Scrooge or sued 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 Benatin Ganatra for his poor business sense in buying
04:03excessive 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.
04:13And this is definitely a secular film where it's less about Christmas as a religious holiday
04:17and more as a tradition that brings people and families together from all different backgrounds
04:22to celebrate and be unified.
04:25Charter's script tries to be faithful to the spirit and structure of Dickens' source material
04:29even quoting the original lines on several occasions.
04:33But soon arguably takes the Scrooge-ian miseless to a whole other level.
04:38His penny pinching means not only does his office staff have to work in cold conditions with their
04:43thermostat locked at 15 degrees C huddling under coats and gloves just to keep warm which
04:49surely must be illegal.
04:51He then fires the entire office on Christmas eve when they disobey that.
04:56Likewise he also forces his housekeeper Mrs Joshi plumber Shabu Kapoor
05:00to work in the dark so that she doesn't put up his electricity bill.
05:04If anything this somewhat over eggs things as the point of the story is to ultimately redeem Scrooge
05:10and that typically works best when the character is actually someone you want to see have redemption.
05:15It's a difficult balance but someone like Bill Murray makes his grumpiness amusing
05:20even though he's petty and vindictive.
05:22It's kind of funny.
05:24Sue just comes across as unpleasant and cruel especially in scene after scene of him
05:30insulting people for about half an hour before the ghosts even show up.
05:35Of course it doesn't have that Canal Nair is severely miscast in the lead role.
05:39Best known for his passing the big bang theory at just 44 he's way too young to be playing someone
05:45in their 60s or 70s no matter how much grey is thrown into his hair or how low he makes his voice.
05:51Bilal Hasner plays the younger adult version of Sue in flashbacks and he's only 18 years or so
05:56younger than Nair who still looks young enough that he could have played the character in his 20s if he
06:01wanted to.
06:02But the main problem is that Nair is visibly struggling especially with the more emotional
06:06parts of the story and in the dramatic moments that's very apparent.
06:10It feels like Nair is trying so hard to play old that he's stiff in a completely different sense than
06:17intended.
06:17He's really unconvincing most of the time with frankly wooden line deliveries.
06:22It's rather telling that he seems most relaxed at the end of the film when Sue is trying to make
06:28up for his behaviour and Nair is basically playing him like his big bang theory character
06:33and is exuberant and animated and his voice is high and he just stops playing him as an old man
06:39completely.
06:40Nair might be the only Scrooge who is better at playing the redeemed character than the nasty one.
06:46But even the angle with Sue ultimately ends up being misjudged when we finally get a look at his
06:51backstory with the ghost of Christmas past revealing that he came to Britain during the
06:55Asian expulsion from Uganda by Idi Amin.
06:58This might be the first Christmas film in history to feature archival footage of notorious Ugandan
07:04dictator Idi Amin and I'm not sure that's a combination we ever needed.
07:09I commend Charter for trying to cover a historical moment that is so rarely seen discussed but it's one
07:14the movie cannot hold. It feels wildly out of place in the context of what is supposed to be a big
07:21uplifting festive movie and honestly it's simply too heavy for it. It's ultimately rather depressing.
07:28It's a huge bit of tonal whiplash to have a movie where Danny Dyer keeps popping up as a singing cabbie
07:35and maybe in a more serious-minded film it wouldn't have felt so wrong as it does here.
07:41It's very strange because this section covering Sue's past is arguably the strongest portion of it
07:49with the film's most attuned sense of cultural identity and yet is also undeniably the most
07:55problematic. It's maybe not a surprise when I say that watching the film I found it to be a
08:01strangely uncomfortable experience. I also think the tone is off in general. There's another scene in
08:07this section where Sue is subjected to a hate attack in an alley and the scene is set to boy
08:12George singing over it. To say the visuals and the music are wildly mismatched would be an understatement.
08:19And it isn't the only time because what absolutely sinks this is the fact it's a musical and oh boy
08:26it is rough to sit through a bad musical and Christmas Karma is especially poor in its execution.
08:33When I think of someone to lead a wide array of musical styles and genres my first choice probably
08:39wouldn't be Gary Barlow of Take That Fame. The songs are mostly straight up bad with hugely on the nose
08:46lyrics where they're not rhyming Karma with um Karma. I could tell I was going to have a rough time from
08:53the second song in when Sue's office workers start rapping about their situation which triggered my
08:59involuntary cringe reflex especially when they start break dancing on the floor. That's why I started to
09:04notice just how terrible the lip-syncing is. Even worse than an old episode of Top of the Pops.
09:10In contrast to many movies these days which record their vocals live on set and that comes with
09:15drawbacks of its own as people who sat through Les Miserables and Cats will tell you Christmas Karma
09:21pre-recorded their tracks. But watching Ben Bailey Smith sounds like he's spitting bars into a studio
09:27microphone but visually he's just casually muttering into someone's ear downright disorientated my senses.
09:34And he's not the only one. Pixie Lott plays Mrs. Cratchit the wife of Sue's most loyal worker Bob
09:40Cratchit played by Leo Sutton and the same thing happens multiple times during her number The Boy Inside
09:46the Man. Yeah even the title is bad in that case. Where it isn't so much that the words are not syncing up
09:53with her mouth but more the way that she's saying them. It's downright bizarre. It's quite hard to
09:59describe without actually seeing it. Oh and I have to mention while we're talking about the Cratchits
10:04of course there's a tiny Tim who in this version I kid you not doesn't just say God bless everyone.
10:12He also exclaims and God bless the NHS. I mean I agree with the sentiment but if I cringed any harder
10:21my face would turn into my bum hole. But anyway back to the music and it's genuinely hard to fathom
10:27how a movie with so many well-known musical talents both in front and behind the camera that such a
10:32major part of the film has turned out so poorly. And it isn't even just the syncing. Sometimes the
10:38way the lyrics are mixed means they get completely lost amidst the music although that might actually
10:44be doing them a favour in that case. But also just the way the numbers are staged as well. Clearly the film
10:49was working on an extremely tight budget and it doesn't really help that the British stiff upper lip
10:55means that we are terrible at cutting loose but the musical numbers are very awkwardly done. Maybe
11:02the greatest example of this is when they try to do a Bollywood style musical number at Raj's Christmas
11:07party and when you think of that you think of big grand epic spectacle lots of colour and vibrancy
11:13everywhere. And they try to do that with about 20 or 30 people stuffed into a front living room like
11:20sardines. It's so claustrophobic they look like they can hardly move let alone dance. Why didn't they
11:27just open things up somehow to let them perform? At least Barlow has a bit of self-awareness as he
11:33pops up with Charter in behind the scenes footage and outtakes during the credits and jokingly says
11:38there's no one left in the cinema right now. They've all left. Which is pretty funny and maybe a bit
11:45more accurate than intended. Worse the songs also badly hamper the pacing as well. The film opens with
11:51three songs almost back to back with each other and that massively slows down the film's opening stretch.
11:57It feels like it takes the film a very long time to get to the ghost especially for a story that almost
12:03everyone is familiar with already. Mostly because these songs focus on the side characters instead
12:09of sued. The net result of that is that when the main portion of the story arrives you know the actual
12:15engine of the story it feels somewhat rushed through. And speaking of those girls there likewise
12:21some very strange choices. Hugh Bonneville appears very briefly as Marley and is almost entirely
12:28unrecognisable as his ghost form is a digital double rather than make-up which might account
12:34for why his scene is over so quickly in this incarnation because he's probably blowing through
12:39most of the budget. Eva Longoria's Ghost of Christmas Past is clearly a play on the Day of the Dead
12:45complete with a full-blown mariachi band which is just odd for a British film. I know the film is
12:51purposefully a mixing pot of cultures but the Mexican holiday isn't as well known in the UK so
12:57it comes a bit out of left field and Longoria herself looks like she isn't quite certain how
13:02she got here complete with a glowing projector head. It's also very clear that Longoria especially
13:08only had very limited availability because she is quite obviously green screened into a few of the
13:15Uganda scenes because we either hear her lines off camera or suddenly cut to her in a really tight
13:20closer with the background CGI'd in. We even see the green screen in the BTS at the end. It does feel
13:27like Longoria and Billy Porter are largely here so it'll be easier to export to America but to Porter's
13:34credit when his time does come on screen no matter how briefly it works as a musical. Porter has
13:42charisma to spare and his big gospel number is by far the best performed and staged number in the entire
13:48film. He almost single-handedly demonstrates the poise and confidence that is lacking elsewhere. This
13:54is literally his camp as Christmas and Porter embraces that as the showman he is. Unfortunately,
14:01he isn't given nearly enough screen time in my opinion. And as for boy George as the ghost of
14:07Christmas future, yes really. I think he's keenly aware that he's not an actor because he doesn't have
14:13any actual lines. Instead, he only sings during the songs, in particular the several versions of
14:20Pain of the Past which go throughout the entire film well before he physically turns up. Even still,
14:26it is a bizarre casting choice for the ages looking uncomfortable under his massive cape, scarred makeup
14:33and with metal claws for hands and is more likely to provoke cries of absolute bewilderment from the
14:39audience going, is that really boy George? Yep, it sure is. Is Christmas Karma the worst British
14:48festive movie? No. Not when Nativity 3 Dude Where's My Donkey exists. But it isn't very good. Honestly,
14:56if they dropped the musical angle and focused more on the character's cultural identity, I think it would
15:02have been better. But this is honestly badly misjudged and plays out cheap and sloppily on screen,
15:09especially in the special effects department. I do have to admit though that it wasn't the kind
15:14of bad film that I get a lot of joy from because I think its heart is so clearly in the right place,
15:20it's so damn well-intentioned and they clearly had a lot of fun making it from the behind-the-scenes
15:25sing-along that we see in the credits. I just felt kind of sad for everyone that this was the end result.
15:33This is certainly one of the weakest versions of Dickens' Tale and its ambition is well beyond its grasp,
15:39the result is just a mess. Despite the tans involved, Christmas Karma, it's a big old turkey.
15:46If you like this review and you want to support my work, you can give me a tip at my Ko-fi page,
15:50or YouTube's Super Thanks feature which is right below the video. Or you can give me a gift at my
15:55Patreon where you can see my videos early among other perks, including access to my Discord server,
16:00and you can also join YouTube memberships for similar perks. Or you can just simply like,
16:04share, and hype the video. It genuinely helps. I'm Matthew Burke saying Merry Christmas and Happy
16:11Holidays. Stay safe everyone.
Comments