Please don’t hate cheesy Christmas films

Emma Flint, The Independent

‘Tis the season for sparkly outfits, lots of food and, of course, bad Christmas films. I don’t mean the kind where Santa behaves badly, but the kind that involves romanticised cliches and wholesome joy. Yes, I’m talking about cheesy Christmas films.

Even Christmas film “haters” have to admit that the festive period is all about over the top, sentimental festivities. Isn’t that why we crave seeing frosty streets painted with colourful lights, and houses adorned with too many decorations and novelty knick-knacks that gather dust? For a month or two, we get to experience something akin to childhood glee – the kind we thought we’d lost after adulthood hammered it out of us with crisis after crisis.

Christmas films, especially the corny ones, embody that glee. They take all the over-used platitudes about goodwill and loving thy neighbour and cover them with so many lights that they might catch fire. And while there’s plenty to cringe at, we secretly love the message these films deliver. Even if, like me, you’re something of a jaded cynic.

One film that achieves all of the above is Your Christmas or Mine?, a newly released Amazon Prime film starring Sex Education’s Asa Butterfield. If you search the title in IMDB, you’ll find plenty of mixed reviews – it’s the same over at Rotten Tomatoes. For a lot of critics, it’s seen as Hallmark-esque fluff, a film that isn’t worthy of note, but I challenge those notions. Not because I think the acting is exemplary (it’s not), or because I think the story is really something special (again, it’s not), but because it makes you feel good.

When I watched it, I couldn’t help but smile and sometimes grow tearful at the merriment that oozes from every pore of this film. It was infectious and offered such warmth, never easing up on the throttle as it sped towards its predictably twee ending. I would gladly watch this film — and many other cheesy Christmas offerings — over the likes ofLove Actually, a film that’s said to be the “perfect Christmas movie”.

It isn’t because I think Love Actually is a bad film, but because its realism sometimes hits too close to home for me to enjoy it. I can’t escape the weight of sadness that tinges its happier elements. For someone who’s renowned for being annoyingly pessimistic, what I want from a Christmas film is comforting fantasy and a sense of goodwill towards all that doesn’t quite exist anywhere but on the screens of our televisions.

I think that’s what a lot of us desire from festive movies, even if we don’t want to admit it because it feels like a “guilty pleasure”. Well, I’m finally embracing my guilty pleasure of loving the hackneyed Christmas tropes. Give me more films like Home Alone (don’t hate me for speaking truths; the films aren’t great, but they’re classics because of that fact), A Christmas Prince, The Princess Switch, Falling For Christmas and Spirited. Considering the last two examples are brand new for 2022, it goes to show that the popularity of cliched Christmas movies has not waned. Maybe it’s because we enjoy putting them down, while secretly loving every minute? Or maybe, just maybe, they’re good…? As in, so bad they’re good.

Most of the films I’ve mentioned, and countless others left off this list, will never win awards. But these movies aren’t meant to make a play for the Oscars — that was never factored into their design. Instead, they deliver what they promise: cheap and plentiful gaiety. And at Christmas, a time when gaiety is the commercialised lifeblood of this holiday, who doesn’t want an endless supply?

So yes, the film critic in me loathes how much I praise “bad films”, but the whimsy in me will savour every badly-written line as I count down to Christmas Day.