Christmas 2020 Reviews: Day 5 - A Very British Christmas (2019)

A Very British Christmas (also known as A Very Yorkshire Christmas) is a made for TV film that follows Jessica Bailey, a famous American singer, who is left stranded in a remote English village after her flight home is cancelled right before Christmas. Jessica ends up staying in a local holiday lodge cabin, run by Andrew, who is struggling to keep his wooden lodge resort open after the death of his wife a few years earlier. As Jessica becomes friendly with Andrew, and makes new friends in his mother, five year old daughter and a fellow American woman in the village, she finds that she might not be so willing to fly back home after all.

Jessica is played by Rachel Shenton. She is probably best known to viewers as Mitzeee Minniver from Hollyoaks, but her career is actually a lot more developed than her TV appearances suggest. In fact, she's an Academy Award winner. In 2018, The Silent Child, which Shenton wrote, produced and starred in, won the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film with her husband Chris Overton, who directed the film and was one of the producers alongside Shenton. That's great for them, but I can't help wondering for Shenton how earning such an award doesn't suddenly stop you from being in low-budget, made for TV films? Especially one like this.

Shenton, by far and away, is the best thing about this film. She's a really good actress, and although an English woman's words may not mean much on this particular compliment, I think her American accent was very convincing and well done. She's the most natural performer here, and brings a lively likeability to her character, who is a bit problematic otherwise. Don't mistake me, she is one of the better characters in this piece, but she's just a bit too bland, a bit too perfect. Everything works out well for her, and she doesn't learn or grow from anything here.

Mark Killeen as Andrew is an unusual leading man for this kind of film. He's good looking, and sweet in the role, but these kind of films, the actor is usually a Colin Firth or Hugh Grant type- a slim, middle class man. Andrew is a big, broad shouldered bloke and he speaks with a gruff, working class, Northern accent. It's actually refreshing to see a big, tough-looking guy take on this romantic leading role. I can't help thinking though, that if this was an American film, like a Hallmark production, he wouldn't have been cast, because he doesn't fit the type of leading man I mentioned above.

This film was shot in Knaresborough, a town in Northern Yorkshire, and a lot of the scenery and choice of settings is quite nice. The shots of the bridge and river are lovely, and the wooden lodges are quite appealing.

Unfortunately, I've now used up all my praise for this film. This was a rather flawed production. Not one of the worst I've seen, but it's still not great.

I would say my main issues lie with the script. The actual plot is very predictable and bland, which isn't criminal within the guidelines of a made for TV romance like this. There are some odd character choices made though. There are times where the film clearly wants Jessica to narrate what's happening onscreen (although we don't need her to, because what's happening onscreen is always obvious) so for some reason, their way of solving this is by having 30-something year old Jessica write entries in her diary, and these are read to the reader in narration format (i.e. we see Jessica writing and making thoughtful faces while her voiceover reads the diary entry she is writing at that time). There's nothing wrong with keeping a diary, but it would suit a tween or teen character more than it suits a globally successful singer in her thirties. Additionally, no one ever talks about or verbally acknowledges the diary, and it doesn't add the Jessica's character development at all. It's a very weak attempt to use a storytelling device.

A far superior example of a diary used in film is in Bridget Jones' Diary, which is an excellent chick flick. In that film, the diary is a key part of the plot. After an unhappy end to a year, Bridget buys the diary and lists her New Years resolutions in it, which she tries to follow. Any narration in the film comes from her quotes in the diary, and it is a key component in the film's finale.

I have no idea why Jessica has a diary in this film. It adds nothing.

Then there's the little girl in this film, called Katie, who is Andrew's daughter. I'm sure she's a lovely child, who is loved very much by her friends and family, and if she continues to pursue acting, I wish her all the best. However, I'm sorry to say, she is the worst thing about this film. This is sadly one of the worst child actors I've seen for a long time, but in her defence, I think this again is far more the scripts fault than the child's. For some reason, whoever wrote this script thought that it was perfectly normal for a five year old to call Jessica, a grown woman "sweetheart" in her thick Yorkshire accent, and she does it at least five times in every scene they're in together. It's painfully annoying and it's just a bizarre choice. I think it's supposed to be a joke relating to how Jessica once called her "sweetheart", but then backtracked because she thought it was inappropriate considering they had just met. Katie then calls her that in every single line of dialogue for the rest of the film. I don't believe the writer has ever interacted with children if they think this is how they talk.

I love children, and I hate it when I watch a film with one that is unintentionally insufferable. It's made all the worse with every adult around her insisting that she's just about the most adorable thing they ever laid eyes on. She's oddly controlling too. Every time Jessica gently reminds her that she has to return to America soon, Katie smugly tells her that she knows she'll be back, that she'll stay and become her mummy. Ugh.

Another prominent side character is Andrew's mother. She's not awful per say, but the whole time I was watching her, I was aware I was watching an actress reading lines for the camera and never believed I was watching a real sweet old grandmother.

Normally, I have a "Quote of the film" for these blog posts, and take a line of dialogue from a character that sums up the mood and tone of the film. For this month, I like to choose quotes that summarise the films view of Christmas. But there weren't any.

This is because every time there's a scene in a Christmas themed setting, the film turns into a montage of horribly whimsical, cheap, advert-looking shots of everyone being festive in a way that makes me momentarily hate my favourite holiday, as obnoxious Christmas stock music plays over these muted shots. I hate it. It looks awful, and these shots just exist to show me further ways this film can be incompetent. It feels so cheap, and I understand that it's a made for TV film, but it also feels shallow, takes out the sincere merriment of Christmas and it simply doesn't look good.

That said, the dialogue featured in this film is largely awful, and oddly nonsensical a lot of the time.

There's a scene where Andrew takes Jessica out on a rowboat. He asks her if she's ever been on one before, to which she replies: "No, never, especially not in winter." If you've never done something before, how can you have especially not have done it in winter?

There's also a scene in the café where Jessica's American friend works, where she takes down orders for the Christmas tree angels that Andrew makes. One old lady asks for two, but then her granddaughter asks if she can have one, so the old lady asks for six instead.

Because as we all know, 2+1=6.

Additionally, there are a couple of scenes where characters give long, cringe inducing speeches, like when Andrew is giving a long, overly moralistic talk to his neighbour Ben, while Jessica just stands out of frame watching the whole thing when she could have easily gone back to her cabin to let them talk in private, or when Andrew's mother insists everyone gets a second chance at love and encourages him to go after Jessica, even though the mother herself is clearly single and there's no love interest for her. Maybe older people just don't deserve love in this film.

And of course, there's the endless amount of "sweetheart" delivered to us by a six year old.

I do have to talk about the ending of this film, because it is remarkably bad. I won't go too heavily into spoilers here, the ending of this film includes:

• A character named Ben (who is awful by the way, both as a character and in his portrayal) holding a bundled blanket, clearly a fake baby in lieu of what is supposed to be his grandchild

• Terrible, fake CGI snow landing on everyone, including Jessica when she was standing underneath a shelter where snow couldn't even reach her

• The revelation that Jessica can't actually sing. Now, this isn't actually a plot device, but throughout the film, the locals in this little English village are always asking Jessica to sing at their Christmas concert. Jessica does, but her voice gets lost as she and other women lip sync to a choir track. So we'll just have to assume that if Rachel Fenton entered The X Factor, it would be a no from the judges

• A rushed conclusion to the Jessica/Andrew romance that seems to involve Jessica throwing away her successful singing career for a man she met a week ago

• Katie

Overall, this film is pretty bad. The shots look cheap, and the score consists of terrible stock music that is far more childish than the scenes they are attached to suggest. Additionally, the England we are presented with here is very much the American dream of what England is: a place where we all apparently travel by steam train, everyone knows each other, and we eat cake or drink tea most of the time. However, we do break out of tradition slightly with Northern accented characters, and thanks to Rachel Fenton's charm, this film does manage to avoid being repulsive, even if it is often sickly.

THE SCOREBOARD

Would I recommend this film? No.

Film rating: 1.5/10