Review Essay
It might be easy to feel like all the good holiday film premises have already been made: as this blog will make clear, there’s no shortage of “Christmas movies” for consumption. But I think one thing that’s easy for at least some of us to forget is how restricted the storytelling base has been for a long time: the pool of people getting the opportunity to screenwrite, direct, and star in movies has been limited in this country to a fairly white crowd (and not just white Americans, but white Americans from certain demographic categories of geography, class, etc.). Boxing Day, then, is a great reminder of how a pretty ordinary premise — a dude is bringing his new loved one to meet his family at the holidays but uh oh there’s some unexpected secrets to be revealed! — can take on some new life and offer a meaningfully different experience when the directing, writing, and performances are coming from a cultural space that’s been underrepresented. Here, Aml Ameen takes us right inside the world of Black British-Caribbean people in London, and the extended networks of family and friendship that tie them together, and the result is a pretty charming (though, again, fairly simple) piece of holiday entertainment.
Again, the writing isn’t really where the film’s breaking ground, at least on the level of the big plot elements. This is the story of Melvin, a newly-successful Black author, who’s returning semi-triumphant to his hometown of London at Christmas to promote his new book, accompanied by his lovely African-American girlfriend (practically-but-not-technically fiancee) Lisa who’s never been there before. It’s also the story of Georgia, Melvin’s childhood sweetheart but now ex, who (we learn early in the film) got left in the lurch when Melvin fled the family drama across the ocean — and Georgia (or “Gigi” as she’s mostly referred to) has spent the intervening years becoming a massive pop star while remaining incredibly close to Melvin’s family. But in a larger sense it’s a whole family wrestling with change — can we move on from Mom and Dad getting divorced, can we accept new partners if they’re not British (or not Black?), can we accept that the next generation thinks and acts differently than we did, etc. Melvin’s having changed in ways they didn’t expect (or welcome) is just the catalyst for a lot of bigger conversations that are had — some of them resolved and some not so much. That’s all right, I think: family is often messy, and the film’s reasonably honest about that.
A lot of what’s fun about the film, for me, is just seeing into the context of a family very unlike mine, and lives unlike mine. Whether it’s Gigi and Melvin’s sister (nicknamed, I swear, “Boobsy”) playfully arguing about how their different skin tones are perceived, or Melvin’s brother Josh in a fight with his cousin Joseph over who gets to flirt with the alluring Alison, or just Melvin’s “auntie” Valerie — who, to be honest, I have no clue whether she’s his actual aunt or his mom’s cousin or just some lady from the block — shouting about how he doesn’t need an American, she’ll find him a good Jamaican church girl? You just feel immersed in someplace that I sure hope and expect is authentic, given that the writer/director’s coming from that world. And honestly, it was a fun place to visit — a holiday gathering that felt alive and lively even when it was uncomfortable.
There’s no denying that at times the film creaks a little — production values can feel a little more like a TV movie at times, and not all the cast was quite experienced or steady enough to make their scenes pop. The script, too, can be a bit rushed, so that sometimes key pieces of information slip by too fast, or I find myself watching a scene without 100% understanding who’s who here, and what they’re here to do. The tone of it carries it through, though, and I liked that the script avoided the really hack moves you might otherwise have expected. A big Hollywood film, for instance, might have had Lisa act out in dumb ways when she realizes her fiancee’s ex is essentially Ariana Grande — had her try to climb out a bathroom window and get stuck, maybe, or sabotage the ex in some way that backfires, etc. Instead, Lisa just settles into the social space, giving as well as she gets when talk is lively, and slipping in slightly more barbed words via innocent-seeming asides when she can’t help but take a swipe (or riposte in response to one). It’s what a real person might do, in other words, and when it blows up (as it inevitably would) it feels more honest. In the end there’s some movie magic, of course, but I liked that for the most part the film wanted me to just believe in these characters rather than go for a cheap joke it could use in a trailer.
Characters grow up a little quickly here, but the movie needs them to, and in any case, I felt like the movie’s message in part was that nobody here was all that messed up in the first place, really. Sometimes people are more ready to be responsible or tolerant than even their loved ones would guess; sometimes people are better able to move on, or to accept other people moving on, than they’d have even thought was true of themselves. We know what kind of movie we’re in, of course, from the very beginning. And what’s a holiday film for, after all, if not to persuade us that our natures do in fact have better angels, and that sometimes we listen to them? In a December like the one many Americans are living through in 2024, a message like that might be more than a little necessary: I was glad to get it, myself.
I Know That Face: One delightful surprise here was that Lisa Davina Philip (who plays Auntie Valerie here) is the same actress who played the widow-seeking-widower postwoman Ms. Johnston in Jingle Jangle — she’s putting down absolutely scene-stealing performances in both movies, but the roles are so different that I literally didn’t realize the two actresses were the same person until IMDB told me so. You can see my thoughts about Jingle Jangle on that blog post. Claire Skinner (who plays Caroline, who is Gigi’s mother and Shirley’s good friend) played Madge Arwell, one of two title characters in the Doctor Who Christmas special, “The Doctor, The Widow and the Wardrobe.” And lastly, Marianne Jean-Baptiste (who plays Shirley here) is Veronica in New Year’s Day, a movie in which two teenage boys complete a lot of dangerous dares on the titular day — and yeah, I guess that film is a stretch as a “holiday movie”, but New Year’s Day is undeniably a holiday in the wintertime so I think it should count.
That Takes Me Back: This movie’s too recent yet to really take me back to any particular nostalgic sight or sound….it sure won’t be long, though, before it’s reminding me of the good old days of 2021, huh? It felt of its moment, anyway, and we’ll see how that feels, in time.
I Understood That Reference: Lisa has fun teasing Melvin a bit about his Britishness, which comes out in a couple of A Christmas Carol quips as she says “Damn, Scrooge!” and “Good luck, Tiny Tim!” to him on different occasions. At one point, in the background, someone playing Santa nearly falls over at Shirley and Richard’s amateur Christmas theatrical, which as far as I can tell from the glimpses we get is a very strange nativity play, its own Christmas story of course. And lastly, a guy standing in the street while music plays, showing one after another the set of cue cards that spell out a message of love….that just has to be a Love Actually reference, doesn’t it?
Holiday Vibes (8/10): In terms of strict depiction of “American classic Christmas”, maybe this doesn’t hit every mark. But in terms of bringing us into multiple lively and socially complex family spaces in the context of holiday traditions, this is firing on all cylinders — there’s no question that the movie does a lot to bring me the feeling of visiting family at this time of year. It’s a different enough family experience from what most of my envisioned audience would encounter that I think it’s not quite to the apex of my imagined ideal, but it’s unquestionably a solidly holiday flick.
Actual Quality (8/10): So, with a lot of holiday films, there’s this balancing act between your emotional and your intellectual reaction to the film (this is true for me, anyway), and I think that’s certainly the case here. My assessment of the film’s quality, then, is to say it’s good but not great: there’s an honesty to the writing on the level of dialogue, but the plot is a little goofily over the top at times, and the uneven range of acting experience and skill in a very classically indie movie cast means that some scenes are great and others have a harder time engaging my attention. It’s not award-worthy work, but it’s definitely solid film-making.
Party Mood-Setter? The film’s got great energy and some quotable moments, and if you and a bunch of your youngish adult friends are getting together to have cocktails and decorate sugar cookies or do a secret Santa exchange I can easily imagine this on the TV at a low volume for you to pay a low, casual level of attention to.
Plucked Heart Strings? Hmmm. I can imagine a couple of moments later in the film being emotionally resonant, since the script is often handling something real about family, and if that’s intersecting with your particular experiences of family, I think the authenticity could get to you. I didn’t feel those moments myself, though, and I’m hesitant to give it the nod on the basis of my guessing how others might react.
Recommended Frequency? I mean, I’ve seen it only once, but this feels like it could be an every year movie for me. It’s warm and sweet and silly in just the right kinds of ways: it makes me feel like I’m eavesdropping on a family I’ll never be a part of but would get a kick out of joining for a potluck. As I said earlier, there’s a gap here — I can tell you intellectually what’s not totally working about the movie. But I liked it a lot on that emotional level, and I think if you give it a try, it would probably win you over in that same way, and I hope you give it a chance.
Amazon Prime will show this to you, if you’re subscribed, and if not, Tubi will show it to you for free (with ads). As far as I can tell, the film had such a limited (and UK focused) release that there’s either no DVD/Blu-ray copy available anymore, or it never really had a release on this side of the Atlantic. As a result, this may be a rare film that won’t be accessible via your local library, but it couldn’t hurt to ask, in my opinion.
I liked this a lot!
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Linda, I’m glad! It’s a movie I didn’t have any expectations about when I watched it, and it really won me over: a charming film, and the fun of the cast/setting is I think playing a big role there. I’m glad you watched it!
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