STARRING JOHN CLEESE, KELSEY GRAMMER, ELIZABETH HURLEY, CAROLINE QUENTIN, NATHALIE COX, TALULAH RILEY, NAOMI FREDERICK, KRIS MARSHALL, RAY FEARON, KATY BRAND AND APRIL BOWLBY.
REVIEW BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©
This is a pretty bad Christmas film, if you’re comparing it to the likes of IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE, WHITE CHRISTMAS, NATIONAL LAMPOON’S CHRISTMAS VACATION, any of the adaptations of A CHRISTMAS CAROL or even JINGLE ALL THE WAY starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, one of my personal favourites. However, if you just want a couple of hours- it’s a long ‘un, as the actress said to the bishop- of tinselly fluff that takes your mind off your life for a bit, then this one just might do the trick.
Four sisters with the unlikely surname of Christmas, Caroline, Joanna, Paulina and Vicky, all re-unite for Christmas in Caroline’s fabulous Yorkshire stately home, which is owned by her rather dozey husband Peter.
Joining them will be their mum, their uncle, Joanna’s new boyfriend Felix, the father who walked out on them on Christmas Day twenty-seven years ago, and that father’s American bimbo girlfriend. Pressure cooker, much?
The sisters have never really gotten along with each other, and the stress of having their beloved father walk out on them on that Christmas Day so long ago has given Caroline, in particular, a sort of festive PTSD that leads her now to try to make every Christmas positively picture-perfect.
This is extremely trying, as you might imagine, for her long-suffering family. It genuinely seems as if, the more pressure you put on the festive season to be just right, the more the chances of its blowing up in your face. This Crimbo in particular, after the year we’ve all had, I intend to keep my expectations low and my blood alcohol count high, lol.
Joanna, played by the fabulously attractive Elizabeth Hurley, Hugh Grant’s former safety-pinned squeeze, is my favourite character. She works in fashion, is a total bitch who changes her blokes as often as she changes her designer togs (Felix is the latest in a long line) and is harbouring a very precious and worrisome secret that may well come out this Christmas if she’s not careful.
Vicky, the youngest Christmas sister, is an annoying, thinks-she’s-cool Kate Moss lookalike and a promiscuous runner-away from her problems. Paulina is the most one-dimensional of all the sisters. They’ve given her an ugly page-boy haircut which is supposedly explained when we hear that she’s obsessed with the Beatles.
Meh. Boring, and a tad unbelievable. Oh, and she’s gay as well. Ho-hum. Of course the plain, lonely and unfashionably dressed one is gay. Stereotypes, anyone? Oh, and wasn’t it a happy coincidence that a girl child named Paulina should grow up obsessed with the Fab Four…? A load of old bunkum, if you ask me.
Caroline Quentin of MEN BEHAVING BADLY fame plays Elizabeth, the sisters’ mum, whose break-up from her husband twenty-seven years ago might have more to it than the sisters are aware. I love John Cleese as her still randy, ancient brother-in-law with whom she’s enjoying a saucy, full-on sexual affair. It’s nice to see old folks being portrayed as still-valid sexual beings at their advanced time of life.
Kelsey Grammer (FRASIER, THE SIMPSONS) is pretty good as the dad who returns from America after twenty-seven years to- hopefully- reconcile with his four daughters. Jackie, his blonde trophy girlfriend, is a complete airhead whose lack of knowledge of electrics nearly scuppers the entire family Christmas idea.
There’s not really much else to say about the film. Except that, maybe, the plot is somewhat suggestive of a sequel so, if the film-makers fancy bagging another few bucks, they’ll get in there quickly and bash it out. Hopefully Liz Hurley’s marvellous breasts are free to star in any proposed sequel, as they were by far and away the best things about FATHER CHRISTMAS IS BACK.
The breasts sadly declined to be interviewed for this piece, claiming a glamorous charity fund-raiser followed by drinkie-poos somewhere flash and upmarket as their reasons for so doing. They have promised us, however, that 2022 will be their biggest, plumpest and squishiest year yet, so obviously we’ll be very much looking forward to that. Over and out.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA HARRIS.
Sandra Harris is a Dublin-based novelist, poet, short story writer and film and book blogger. She has studied Creative Writing and Vampirology. She has published a number of e-books on the following topics: horror film reviews, multi-genre film reviews, women’s fiction, erotic fiction, erotic horror fiction and erotic poetry. Several new books are currently in the pipeline. You can browse or buy any of Sandra’s books by following the link below straight to her Amazon Author Page:
http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B015GDE5RO
Her debut romantic fiction novel, ‘THIRTEEN STOPS,’ is out now from Poolbeg Books:
https://www.amazon.com/Thirteen-Stops-Sandra-Harris-ebook/dp/B089DJMH64
The sequel, ‘THIRTEEN STOPS LATER,’ is out now from Poolbeg Books:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1781994234
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