Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey (2020)

Review Essay

I’ll acknowledge at the outset that most Christmas films that latch onto our hearts (to any degree) are films we encountered via childhood — our own, the childhood of those around us, or the child that lingers within as we age.  I say that just because I’m about to be a little gentler to this movie than I suspect it may deserve, but that’s because it’s a film I have only ever seen in the company of my delightful kid, for whom it is a “Christmas classic” at this point because she’s seen it annually for about as long as she can remember.  Also, that first year that she and I watched it together, it was the pandemic year — we’d been largely confined to our house for months and months, and the holidays ahead of us were about to be conducted really entirely on Zoom.  So the exuberance and the physicality of this film landed a little more soundly, for me, because I was feeling that vulnerability and sadness that the pandemic brought with it — I was ready to feel like a kid alongside her.

I know, I know, it’s the third paragraph and I haven’t touched the plot yet — well, folks, the plot’s the piece of the movie I have the hardest time defending.  I mentioned the “new fairy tale” idea earlier, and I think that’s the best way to understand the movie — so much of it really wouldn’t make sense in a realistic world where there’s any consistency at all, but the logic of fairyland is famously a little less reliable.  Here’s the premise: Jeronicus Jangle, a brilliant toy inventor, has a wife and child and a great life, until one day, after achieving his greatest invention yet, his assistant (Gustafson) who feels overlooked and neglected steals both the invention and Jeronicus’s book of inventions and creates a brand new toy empire.  Jeronicus is ruined, and soon loses everything — his store’s a shambles, his wife dies, he alienates his brilliant inventor daughter.  But then HER daughter, a girl named Journey who is an inventor herself, decides to go visit her grandfather for Christmas basically unannounced.  Will the chipper enthusiasm and open-hearted love of a little girl warm the bitter old man’s heart?  Will Gustafson’s theft of Jangle’s inventions finally come back to haunt him?  Will there be a singing widowed postal worker who serenades Jeronicus on the daily with her three backup singers chiming in like Gladys Knight and the Pips?  Uh….yeah, yes is the answer to all three of those questions.  Jingle Jangle is kind of a wild ride sometimes.

So, basically everything about the plot really is cuckoo bananas — there’s just no reasonable way Gustafson could have gotten away with his theft when Jeronicus could simply have reported it, nor is there any real explanation other than “it happened” for how Jeronicus suddenly was unable to remember or recreate literally any of the inventions he’d come up with previously, let alone create anything new.  And sure, I could excuse those elements as “magical” except this is ALSO a script that later treats the theft of inventions as something the local constabulary treats really seriously with the administration of swift justice.  That same script wants me to believe that Jeronicus was unable to make any good inventions at all after Gustafson’s betrayal….except for the single exception of an adorable flying, talking robot that puts basically all his other ideas to shame.  Again, I guess, magic?  I don’t know — there’s also a massive logical flaw in the frame tale that surrounds this fairy story, but I really don’t want you to think about the plot that much, it’s not what the movie’s for.

The movie’s for so many other things — the aforementioned brilliant costumes, props, and sets.  Some really excellent acting performances show up on screen: I mean, sure, this isn’t the best work ever by either Forest Whitaker or Keegan-Michael Key but the two of them are fun to watch even when they’re working with a pretty basic script.  The music, with John Legend doing some co-writing and Usher showing up for the end credits, is definitely an asset, also.  And there’s just no denying that, in a genre that tends to skew lily white, there’s something truly fantastic about seeing a full cast of Black performers — major roles, minor ones, extras — in outlandishly lovely Victorian costume on snowy cobbled streets, showing off their skills as dancers and singers and overall performers.  White kids have gotten to grow up watching Danny Kaye and Vera-Ellen in White Christmas, after all, or the showy musical performances in the 1970 adaptation of Scrooge, and it makes me glad that other kids can grow up seeing folks who look like themselves and their families, spreading some holiday cheer.  Heck, I’m glad my White kid is getting that opportunity – that Christmas joy for her will be a more multicultural and multiracial experience than the world my generation grew up with.  I wouldn’t just give a pass to any film that came along with a diverse cast, to be sure, but there’s more than enough good things going on here for me to be willing not to think too hard about how exactly the story unfolds.

I Know That Face: Hugh Bonneville, one of the few non-Black performers in the main cast, appears as Mr. Delacroix here (sort of investor in / landlord for Jeronicus, it seems?), and also appears as the narrator in Silent Night: A Song for the World, a kind of docudrama re-enacting the writing of the Christmas hymn.  Lisa Davina Phillip, who for me steals every scene she’s in as the postwoman Ms. Johnston, also appears as Auntie Valerie in Boxing Day, a romantic comedy in which a British writer brings his American fiancee home to the UK for Christmas to meet his eccentric family (stay tuned for more on that one).  And Anika Noni Rose, who here plays the adult daughter of Jeronicus, appeared as a choir member back in 2004 in Surviving Christmas, the film in which an unpleasant billionaire hires a family to spend the holiday with him. Hoo boy, it’s hard not to make some political commentary about that one, but it’s only day two of the blog, maybe I can let some pitches go by, eh?

That Takes Me Back: A child’s reference to “The Jangleater 2000” took me back to when calling something a “2000” sounded futuristic and cool — what do kids say these days?  3000, maybe, since Buddy gets to be the Buddy 3000?  Also, this movie takes place at a time when rich and powerful people could still be held accountable by the legal system….oh, sorry, is that too dark for you? Guess James couldn’t hold it back after all: look, folks, it’s 2024, I can’t pretend not to be paying attention to the world, even if the goal here is more escapism than activism.

I Understood That Reference:  In the film’s prologue, before she spins her (highly unlikely) story, Grandma’s asked by one of her unnamed grandchildren if she’ll read them The Night Before Christmas, though she deflects the request since “it’s time for a new story”.  (Okay, Grandma, I’m picking up the subtext of race in that remark, and you’re right — that’s what I like about this movie, that instead of retreading the old Christmas tales, it’s presenting something different.)

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Holiday Vibes (7.5/10): While the story is less about Christmas and more about the fantastical adventures of Journey, this has so many of the 19th Century trappings that, between A Christmas Carol and Currier & Ives lithographs, we associate with nostalgic holiday celebrations and wintry scenes of yore — mechanical toys and rich Victorian costuming and horses clopping along on cobblestones, etc.  This will press plenty of festive buttons, if you’re coming to it looking for those feelings.

Actual Quality (7.5/10): Again, the plot is bonkers: we cannot think about it at all.  But plot’s not the only thing a movie is made of.  If I just focus on the settings and costumes, the music and the acting, the overall feel of this movie?  I’m having a very fun time with it — and if I’m watching it alongside my 5th grader, add at least a full point to this rating, you know?  I know the film’s got plenty of issues, but I’m so darn glad it exists.

Party Mood-Setter? This is a perfect role for this movie to play, since at the low level of attention of “it’s on while we’re wrapping presents” or what have you, all the movie’s best stuff is still going to shine through aggressively, and the weaknesses of its overall structure are going to be less visible.  I’d highly recommend giving it a try in that setting.

Plucked Heart Strings? I think for a child audience, it might land the punches it wants to throw.  As an adult viewer, the plot ends up being silly enough that I can’t really take the problems of Jeronicus (or anybody else) seriously enough to feel actually tearful, but I certainly care about the characters, and that’s a testament to the things that are working here.

Recommended Frequency: This is an annual movie for me, in part because it’s one of my daughter’s top 5 holiday movies of all time (I asked her for a ranking).  I think it easily offers enough in the way of charm and color and energy to be worth it every year, and with each passing year, I get more accustomed to its weird plot, so that the ways in which it doesn’t work are less noticeable or problematic for me now. Again, I think you should give it a whirl, and I think it’s fine if it’s just something you’ve put on in the background while you construct a Yule log out of gingerbread or make homemade eggnog or whatever fun holiday practices you engage in.

This time around, there’s only one place I can steer you: if you want to watch Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey, as a Netflix movie, it is unavailable on any streaming service or rental/purchase service other than Netflix itself.