We’re a few weeks into the annual Netflix Christmas dump and standards have already fallen below freezing. In both Alicia Silverstone’s A Merry Little Ex-Mas and Minka Kelly’s Champagne Problems, motions were lethargically, and cheaply, gone through without any seasonal sparkle added, a low bar once again set for the next month and change.
So while there’s nothing all that remarkable about the streamer’s latest festive effort, crime caper turned romcom Jingle Bell Heist, there’s just about enough to give it an edge over its more anemic peers. Rather than being set in Snowflakeville or some other absurdly named small town in Middle America (while being clearly filmed in Canada), it’s shot on location in London during Christmas 2023 (directed by Mike Flanagan’s long-time cinematographer Michael Fimognari). The city does a great deal of heavy-lifting with every pub, caff and high street helping to conjure up a real sense of place usually absent in such territory (it also means no need for increasingly distracting fake CG snow). There are roles for British comedy stars like Peter Serafinowicz and Amandaland’s wonderful Lucy Punch and the soundtrack opts for alternative holiday songs from Low and Run-DMC over yet another easily affordable cover of All I Want for Christmas is You. There’s also a plot that isn’t quite as rote as we’re used to with no career-minded woman waiting to be tamed by a family-craving hunk. These might not sound like major, applause-worthy diversions but in the hopelessly generic, and at times unforgivably lazy, world of Netflix Christmas fodder, it’s not nothing.
Rather than the city meets small town setup, our lovebirds are, wait for this, both living in London and both struggling in similar ways. American Sophie (Disney Channel alum Olivia Holt) is caring for her sick mother while toiling away at two jobs, one of which is at a department store gearing up for the holidays (or rather a random building rather unconvincingly made into one). Nick (Sex Education’s Connor Swindells) is an ex-convict father trying to provide for his ex-partner and daughter, wasting his tech knowhow at a mobile phone shop. They both share a certain knack for stealing, one that causes their paths to collide and a plan to be formulated, combining their skills to rob Maxwell Sterling (Serafinowicz) an obnoxious millionaire behind the department store. On Christmas Eve of course.
While we’re clearly not in full eat-the-rich territory (this is not Home Alone meets Parasite), fueling a throwaway Christmas movie with class anguish at this particular moment is an effective idea. Sophie’s decision to move her British-born mother back to her homeland is based around an inability to afford healthcare back in the US but even the NHS has its limits with further experimental options only available privately. Nick’s bitter history with Maxwell is traced back to an insurance scam that he was made the fall guy for and the two bond over a shared feeling of hopelessness over an unfair system and a desire to get what they feel is rightfully theirs.
The specifics of the heist, as thought up by novelist and Bridgerton writer Abby McDonald, are not quite as whipsmart as they should be (and as the sub-Ocean’s Eleven score seems to suggest) but she does find some decently surprising twists in the last act that help raise the stakes and lift our investment from mild to medium. Holt and Swindells are a solid pairing with a smidgen of chemistry but their dialogue ends up being a little too beige, a bit too first draft, McDonald struggling to bring the laughs we keep waiting for (the script was on 2022’s Black List but could have benefitted from a punch-up after). There’s one scene involving dual undercover earpiece banter that’s a sharp idea and one wonders what could have been added with someone else in the mix because as it stands it’s not all that funny (Punch is the most reliable source of comedy, trying her best to elevate what she’s given, if only she was given more). It’s the problem faced when one of these films is raised just above the gutter-level norm, you end up wanting it to be that much better. As it stands, Jingle Bell Heist is as good as it’s getting for now.
