"A Boy Called Christmas," Not Kringle, Not Nick
I'm Not Too Sure Why He Was Called Christmas
I lied, I know why he’s called Christmas but it doesn’t…make sense to me.
This movie poster looks banging though. Maggie Smith is great, I absolutely love her and the other actors were promising in their own individual and unique and totally their way.
It begins with Maggie Smith telling a story to a trio of rather rambunctious, particularly annoying kids. She tells them a story about— you guessed it— a boy called Christmas.
We’re reminded throughout her retelling of the story that this is a story as the trio of kids rudely interrupt and go so far as to demand a happy ending of Professor McGonagall.
Nicholas (for the boy’s real, god-given Christian name, is Nick) has a loving family but they’ve fallen on hard times. His mom’s dead, his dad’s gone off to elfen war (not really but he goes to kidnap an elf child and that for some reason sounds worse), and his caretaker is his bitch of an Aunt who straight up abuses him and had me wringing my hot chocolate ready for a fight.
Nick goes off to find the elves. He gets a talking pet, which makes me wonder if this is all an elaborate setup to reveal he is actually a Disney princess, and finds out some little bits of his family’s history that makes us go “Aww. That’s cute.”
And then we move on.
Because it’s a Christmas movie. Not particularly memorable. Fun enough in its own right, but generally something that you watch as the fire burns low on your hearth— and then never again.
In the canon of holiday themed movies, it does the job and it makes you feel good (but only after you feel really really shitty about Nick’s circumstances and his ever peppy, can-do attitude in spite of it).
Maybe watch it with younger relatives. Grab some spiked egg nog for the wait. But most of all, enjoy it for yourself because like many genre movies, it checks all the boxes and we’re really only here for vibes, aren’t we? :)