EVERY year around this time, I take a towering stack of DVDs from the shelf: my treasured collection of Christmas movies. I know that most – if not all – are available on Netflix (or similar) these days but there is something joyous about that annual tradition of revisiting them.
But, in recent times, I have noticed a palpable shift in my tastes. Here are five things I would tell my younger self about the perils and pitfalls of festive viewing.
1) Love Actually is hugely problematic. I first saw it at a press screening in October 2003. Afterwards, I waxed lyrical about the star-studded cast, romantic plotlines and sparkling, witty dialogue. My colleague asked if we had watched the same film: he hated it.
Two decades later I concur that it is a stinker. It’s not particularly funny and – even graver – almost all the male characters have troubling story arcs as they pursue women as objects of desire.
There’s Hugh Grant as the Prime Minister lusting after his tea lady and Colin Firth as a writer who falls in love with the housekeeper at his French holiday let.
Alan Rickman is a boss having an affair with his PA, while Andrew Lincoln plays a gallery curator who films creepy wedding footage of his best friend’s wife, then shows up unannounced at her home to declare his undying love on a series of giant cue cards.
Then we have Kris Marshall as the goofy guy who, unable to get a girlfriend in London, heads to America in search of greener dating pastures and swiftly picks up a trio of women in a bar.
A young Thomas Brodie-Sangster, meanwhile, embarks upon the airport dash movie trope as he chases the girl he fancies through Heathrow.
How did I not see any of this on the first, second or 27th viewing? Perhaps because I had been conditioned to view romance through the prism of the male gaze and therein lies a bleak and unsettling epiphany. Will I be watching this year? Not a chance.
2) Die Hard *might* be a Christmas film. Now, in the past, this is a hill I have been willing to die on: the unshakeable belief that the Bruce Willis action thriller is NOT a Christmas movie, but merely Christmas adjacent.
Sure, it takes place on Christmas Eve and there is a dead villain in a Santa hat but, in theory, Die Hard is a shoot-em-up flick, with an off-duty cop crawling through an air conditioning duct in a grubby vest, that could take place on any day of the year. Right?
Erm… Contrary creature that I am, I might now be beginning to see things ever-so-slightly differently. I grudgingly acknowledge that if it wasn’t for his estranged wife’s office Christmas party, then the bold John McClane wouldn’t have any reason to be at Nakatomi Plaza.
My next quandary: fellow 1980s celluloid alumni Lethal Weapon has a drug bust in a Christmas tree lot and Rocky IV has a Christmas Day boxing match. Festive films yay or nay?
3) No adaptation of A Christmas Carol will ever surpass The Muppets’ version. Kermit the Frog as Bob Cratchit is perfection. I will be taking no further questions on this subject.
4) Festive romcoms are frothy magic and good for the soul but do set the bar high when it comes to Yuletide whimsy. How else do you explain my soft spot for Christmas tree farms, snow globes, sleigh rides and rugged, outdoorsy men in quilted bodywarmers?
5) You will spend decades coveting a house adorned in twinkling decorations like the Griswold abode in National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation – only to finally reach middle age and find yourself living through a horrendous energy crisis.
Stringing up a few fairy lights is enough to make the dials on the electricity meter whirl like a Las Vegas slot machine. Bah humbug.
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