Father Christmas Is Back Review – Insidiously Boring

It’s been a while since we finished watching the 2021 comedy ‘Father Christmas Is Back’ and just thinking about it makes me feel sleepy. So here’s a quick review of a shitty film from a person trying to keep their eyes wide open, just so you can be warned about the perils of watching this Christmas disaster.

Directed by Mick Davis and Philipe Martinez, the story revolves around the Christmas family (it’s their surname), comprising of four sisters, who were all abandoned by their father James Christmas (Kelsey Grammer) on Christmas day. Elizabeth Hurley plays the eldest sister Joana, who loves fashion and abhors kids. Nathalie Cox is second in line, the neurotic Caroline Christmas-Hope, who is obsessed with the festive season and hosts her family for the holidays in her husband’s sprawling Yorkshire Mansion every year. Her plans for a perfect Christmas are completely ruined, when their father shows up unannounced at her doorstep after 27 years, with a young blonde girlfriend.

Confession time, I saw the trailer and it was easy to understand this was going to be a mediocre Christmas comedy, a 5/10 types, but the sort of light film you wouldn’t mind watching with friends on a weekend. And we had friends over for the weekend. So we saw the trailer, thought “oh yeah, this could be fun”. Nobody was prepared for just how bad it was going to get. It’s not the ‘what the hell is going on?’ kind of bad, not even the ‘this shit is giving me a headache’ sort of boring, it’s so mundane, you just want to fast-forward through it all and go take a nap. Some porn movies might have better plots, and even if they don’t, at least they have sex. ‘Father Christmas Is Back’ has nothing.

The big twist towards the end is predictable, I was able to take a guess within the first half-an-hour of the story. So no surprises. Except for a mildly entertaining first few minutes, ‘Father Christmas’ is completely snooze-worthy. Skip skip skip. It’s a 2.5/10 from me. My friends may think that’s generous.