Best Christmas Films? No light without darkness

 

Best Christmas Films? No light without darkness

The majority of Christmas films are gaudy, commercial and overly sentimental. They purport to tell us what true happiness is, but how can this be known without knowing the absence of it? The best seasonal films acknowledge some of the pain of real life as well as universal aspirations for joy, and go against the grain in terms of traditional and specific notions of family and harmony. Instead, they embrace the potential for comfort in what we actually have, however small and imperfect that may be.

Conversely, the best Christmas films either deal with a darker interpretation of the season or are at least tinged with something less simplistically joyful to the sentimentalised ideal. Please see below:

1.                   A Christmas Story (1983)

This was a revelation to me when I recorded it from television many years ago based on nothing more than a 4-star rating in the Radio Times, but this film is so beloved in America that there is a channel showing it 24 hours a day around Christmas. I limit my viewing of it far more with the aim of preserving the sanctity of a very precious thing, but I cannot praise it highly enough as the ultimate Christmas film. A seemingly simple and under-assuming story of a boy who wants a BB gun for Christmas in the 1940s, it tracks the everyday travails of lower middle class family life with exquisite charm and humour throughout. Based on radio DJ Jean Shepherd’s musings and life stories, further reading on his philosophy that consumerism merely taps in to desires that are already there rather than imposing drives and wants in to innocent beings can be found here: https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/betrayal-jean-shepherd-and-a-christmas-story/

2.                   Black Christmas (1974)

Inexplicably, the best family Christmas film and the scariest horror film were directed by the same man and both are set in what should be the most merry of seasons. Bob Clark is a director that deserves more attention - see https://www.popmatters.com/bob-clark-films-2646125288.html for suggestions of a surprisingly influential filmmaker. Black Christmas is considered by those in the know to be the true benchmark American slasher film, coming four years before Halloween and providing such inspiration to John Carpenter that Clark apparently advised him. It may seem ridiculous to try and find auteuristic similarities between this and A Christmas Story however, both are shot in a low-key Clarksian style with relatable characters and the same warm, grainy aesthetic that creates nostalgia in A Christmas Story but that becomes perversely warped in Black Christmas. In the latter, a serial killer is picking off sorority girls one by one at Christmas in the creepiest way imaginable, making the most hideously weirdo prank calls in between murders. And aside from its seasonal context, it’s a classy horror with interesting, sometimes tough female characters including Margot Kidder and Olivia Hussey, an old movie that set a tone before the cliché became one of busty screamers and contrived slaughterhouse plots.

3.                   It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)

Frank Capra’s rightful classic exudes small town, anti-capitalist values with endearing, old school charm and is propelled by performances led by expert everyman James Stewart. It’s the opposite of A Christmas Carol in that an exceptionally good man rather than a bad one has to be taken in hand by supernatural forces to save himself and a community. For a film hailed as the ultimate Christmas movie it’s incredibly dark, dealing with various issues that are potentially life-sinking in reality, and in fact the whole story is built around a prospective suicide. It’s crushingly heart-breaking pretty much from the get go – at the corner of every happy moment is a tragedy to the point you could cry throughout the whole damned thing. But trust me, if you are willing to take the rough with the smooth, it’s worth it. Hot dog!

Spoiler alert - it drifts slightly at the end and is disappointing when George sees Mary as – yarg! an unmarried woman wearing glasses and working in a library!? - as the terrible outcome if George had never lived. Gratefully though, it’s a minor blip that we can overlook in an otherwise truly wonderful film.

4.    Scrooged (1988)

The 1980s TV exec context is cleverly utilised for a re-examination of the morals of A Christmas Carol, whereby a man with wealth and power achieved by cold-blooded heartlessness is forced to confront himself and the impact of his actions on others.

Although Scrooged seems to have divided critics since it’s release – and Bill Murray himself has derided it – there are those who feel it has become a Christmas classic, and I’m unashamedly one of them. Marking a sensational comeback after a four-year hiatus following Ghostbusters, it’s right up there with Groundhog Day as an excellent showcase for the Murray brand of sarcastic wit that he balances impressively well with the more sentimental side of things. Highlights are an endearing love story and nice chemistry with Karen Allen as the girlfriend, a host of cameos including Robert Mitchum and David Johansen of New York Dolls, the tear-jerking fate of a homeless man, and a ball busting fairy who makes sure Frank feels some of the pain he causes others. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, Yule love it!

5.    Carol (2015)

Meticulous in period detail while also a very grown-up Christmas film for the modern age, this is also my second favourite film directed by Todd Haynes behind Safe. A key auteur from the 1990s American indie era, Haynes’ characteristic subtlety and empathy reaches its peak in this Patricia Highsmith adaptation of a love affair between a young shop girl and a wealthy older woman in the 1940s. Beautiful cinematography with performances that are affecting in their delicate, restrained power assist a story loaded with heartbreak and poignancy. And in a film so decorated with the trappings of the Christmas period, it is profoundly meaningful that the big day itself passes without acknowledgement, appropriately denying the hypocrisy of a celebration built around being with the ones you love when our heroines are denied it themselves.

6.            Tangerine (2015)

Pretty much the ultimate anti-Christmas film in that, although it takes place on Christmas Eve, aesthetically and thematically it goes against everything apparently held dear in terms of the traditional wintry, family-affirming ideal. Here instead we have the non-travails of two transgender prostitutes trawling the Strip in sun-baked LA as recorded via smartphone by excellent American indie filmmaker, Sean Baker. Swear-ridden and frankly depicting street-bought sex, it is refreshing in its address to the experiences of those not normally featured in holiday fare, but also in its humour and a finale in which not everything is tied up in a happy bow. The warm feelings do come for anyone who understands outsider-ness, and from an ending where the two leads share a quietly powerful moment in which true friendship - defiant in the face of poverty, social status and heterosexual-based family orientation – wins out.

 

 

7.            Gremlins

This is the unusual story of a Christmas present delivered to an adult child, and one in which seasonal merriment is all but destroyed by the deviousness of some small but extremely destructive creatures. Set in a Bedford Falls-esque scenario, a young, small-town man receives from his failing inventor father a Mogwai, a cute critter sold to him by the young grandson of a Chinese man, and all is adorable until the rules that must be followed when caring for the strange animal are broken - then all hell breaks loose. A stand-out scene is Billy’s mother defending her kitchen and home with the bravery and ruthlessness of any domestic warrior queen. Massively Christmassy but with some very dark twists on the season as well as on the small town, family-oriented backdrop in typical Joe Dante-fashion, it’s now an iconic ‘80s classic and cult Christmas favourite.

8.            The Snowman

Another 80s childhood favourite in a far more wistful sense, this one brings with it an ocean of tears like the one James and his wonderful snowman friend fly over in the iconic scene. Delightfully sketchy in its hand-drawn animation aesthetics and cosily ordinary in its quintessential Englishness - even a woolly jumper-clad David Bowie in the haunting introduction – The Snowman has come to perfectly represent the poignancy of disappointment as it comes so hard on the heels of fleetingly transcendent joy.

9.            Die Hard (1988)

“Yippee ki-yay mother****er!” This one’s for grown-ups only - the dark side of Die Hard is that it is a classic 80s trigger happy and tongue-in-cheek action movie in its approach to rampant violence, but it’s also some of the most fun you can have watching a Christmas film. Bruce Willis as John McClane is an unashamed throwback to all all-American tough guy movie heroes who get shit done against all the odds, taking on villainous Europeans, a building under construction, as well as dumbass police chiefs and stoopid, suit-wearing FBI agents. Just as quotable and iconic is the excellent Alan Rickman as Hans Gruber, the German nemesis looking to rob a whole load of bearer bonds by staging what he had hoped would be a quietly elaborate siege on an office block until New York cop McClane singlehandedly makes himself a serious fly in the ointment. It’s actually really smart stuff, directed with visual style by John McTiernan and featuring assured, compelling performances by all. And it gave birth to the best Christmas jumper ever.

10.          Edward Scissorhands

If there are both horrors and pleasures to be found in either city living or suburban dwelling at Christmas or otherwise, the worst of small-town existence is brought to the fore in this now classic modern fairy tale from Tim Burton at his very best. Here the small-town community is ultimately dastardly, intolerant of otherness when it no longer suits its own purposes and presented in ghastly hues of pastel horror in contrast to the gentle Goth boy Edward, who is ushered in to town by twinkly, well-meaning Dianne Wiest. Brought in to being by inventor Vincent Price as a vulnerable, caring and creative humanoid with ‘hands’ that suggest the complete opposite – elaborate and savagely sharp giant scissors – Edward’s accidental weapons are first used to the delight of the townsfolk he arrives in the realm of before hysterical small-mindedness turns the former welcomers in to a witch-hunting mob. Johnny Depp is perhaps underrated for conveying so subtly well a sense of Edward’s capacity for love, sorrow and burgeoning humanity underneath the make-up and Robert Smith hair, before he’s so emphatically rejected by the comparatively weird community at the bottom of the hill his gothic mansion home sits atop. There is also wry humour peppered throughout, but a haunting and mournfully beautiful Danny Elfman score, along with visions of snowy heartache make for an exquisitely bittersweet Christmas classic.

11.          Home Alone

The respective heroes of Home Alone and A Christmas Story are strangely similar in that both are cute blonde little boys whose wants and desires are frustrated by adults, and both imagine themselves far more capable in life than any of said adults give them credit for. The crucial difference is that trying and failing is an inevitable and relentless part of life in A Christmas Story, whereas in Home Alone, Kevin gives us an emphatic demonstration of how, with enough tenacity and optimism, he can successfully triumph over those who would doubt or even destroy him.

Like many of my generation, I can’t help but have fondness for the film – it has a masterful soundtrack that is now iconic and inextricably linked with the season; visually, it exudes Christmas in spades with the warm glow of lights and cosy interiors contrasting with Christmas card snow scenes that invite serious sledding and decent-sized snowmen. And there is also some humorously authentic family discontent. However, as much as we celebrate the courage and ingenuity of little Kevin fending off the dastardly burglars in the final showdown, I always felt there was something a bit deranged about the super-violence he visits upon them. Inspired by the article on Jean Shepherd mentioned above and also this one on Home Alone - https://www.vice.com/en/article/8gkbjg/americas-favorite-child-soldier-home-alone-25-years-later  - it occurred to me that Ralphie’s fantasy in A Christmas Story of what he could achieve if he had a toy gun versus Kevin’s reality of the power he wields when literally armed in Home Alone is like comparing a form of liberal nihilism with the post-Reaganistic optimism referenced in the Vice article. The latter also makes interesting points about the dubious underlying class/racial issues detectable in John Hughes’ films generally, here identified as depicting Harry and Marv - respectively Italian-American and Jew - as grubby and despicable in contrast to the bickering but otherwise clean and New Money-rich McAllister family. Ultimately for me, Home Alone is a guilty pleasure, but give me the school of futility (in which one’s most fervent desires are rarely realised as one would want) in A Christmas Story over the playpen of triumph in Home Alone any day.

12.          Batman Returns

Tim Burton again and, like Die Hard, not so much a Christmas film as one that happens to be set at Christmas, Batman Returns utilises many holiday hallmarks in delightfully twisted ways. Snowy and present-filled, the context of Burton’s excellent Batman sequel only supports the loneliness, discontent and family fuck-ups of the Christmas experience suffered by many/some (delete as you see fit): the Penguin emerges to avenge his parental abandonment and Catwoman spits angrily in the eye of cosily celebratory hypocrisy in a movie where a huge bow-adorned gift offers violent carnage and a light switch-on results in crowd-viewed beauty queen assassination. It sounds disturbing but it really is a lot of fun – Burton before he and the world became so oppressively family friendly.

13.          Holiday Affair (1949)

Just as director Todd Haynes showed his appreciation for classic Hollywood melodrama in his tribute to Douglas Sirk’s All That Heaven Allows with Far From Heaven, it seems likely that he was familiar with Holiday Affair when making Carol. Carol is effectively the gay Holiday Affair – in both, a romance begins in the toy section of a department store at Christmas where the beautiful mother of a young child comes in to buy a train set from the salesperson who will trouble her prospective future with a more conventional, dependable lover. In Holiday Affair, the latter is a lawyer offering financial stability to war widow and single mother Connie (Janet Leigh), and is set up against the wry and naturally perceptive charm of rival Robert Mitchum as Steve Davis, a free-wheeling and charming bum with dreams of boat building in a role aimed at tempering real-life Mitchum’s marijuana-bust controversy by appearing in family-friendly fare. A Christmas romance with various twists and turns, it’s classy stuff thanks to the performances and chemistry between the leads, (spoiler alert) and a conversation between Connie and Steve about the train set he buys for her son again calls to mind Carol and its happy ending:

Connie:  But he shouldn’t feel that he’ll always get everything he wants.

Steve:  Well not always, no. But every now and then so that he’ll know that these things can happen.

14.          Remember the Night (1940)

Classic Hollywood doing it interestingly again in a Preston Sturges scripted film starring Barbara Stanwyck. She’s typically gutsy and problematic as a thief who ends up spending Christmas with the guy who will be prosecuting her once the holidays are over. Difference is that the film deals with her more empathetically than in her typical roles as femme fatale, and she shows she can deliver vulnerability as well as playing the diva, maybe even better. Nice chemistry between her and Fred MacMurray in the first of their pairings that would be repeated in the classic noir Double Indemnity, as he plays a guy from the same part of the country as her but with a loving upbringing unlike her own youth with a cold, judgemental mother. For once the period of inactivity between Christmas and New Year when usually nothing useful gets done performs the perfect function of bringing these two opposites together in heart-wrenchingly romantic fashion.

15.          Meet Me in St Louis

The most sentimental Christmas moment that has me properly booing is the scene in this film where Judy Garland sings ‘Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas’, but again perhaps because of the melancholy behind her sad reassurances to a little sister crying at the thought of moving away from their beloved city. It’s a film that actually moves through all four of the seasons, but the winter scenes are at Christmas and form the crucial turning point in the fates of the Smith family in this vivid classic musical from Vincente Minelli.