A modern Bollywood inspired musical retelling of the classic novel A Christmas Carol that will leave viewers wondering if enduring this is the karma for paying the price of admission.
- Director – Gurinder Chadha
- Runtime – 118 minutes
- Certificate – 12A
- Country – United Kingdom
After reading the reviews literally like an hour before watching, I thought ‘it cannot be that bad.’ However, when Danny Dyer started horribly lip syncing, I kid you not in the first two minutes, I knew it was going to be that bad.
To be honest, everything about this is so bad I don’t actually know where to begin, but I will say the only sort of compliment I can give it is that when it was set at night, I thought it looked okay. Even that isn’t saying much because a large majority of that is just establishing shots of the London Christmas night life. To make matters worse, it seems it wasn’t even filmed on location but rather using The Volume.
Apart from some okay looking nighttime scenes, there is virtually nothing redeeming about this film. For a Bollywood inspired musical retelling of A Christmas Carol it is an incredibly timid one, almost bordering on being ashamed of that fact. Which is ironic because one of the main themes is remembering your roots.
Even when there is a musical number, the actual song is weak and forgettable, the choreography is laughable and the lip syncing may genuinely be unforgivable. Sometimes it is hard to tell, because the camera isn’t focusing on one particular person, but when the focus is on someone it is painfully obvious. Leo Suter’s Bob Cratchit also has a couple of musical numbers to my displeasure. Again, the songs are completely dull and seem to last ages – just when you think he is about to put the guitar down, he carries on singing.
Painful is the word I would choose to describe this film the most. It perfectly describes all aspects including the script. It is so painfully on the nose and in your face that I physically rolled my eyes numerous times.
Admittedly, the film is quite thematically dense. Speaking on issues such as classism, the cost of living crisis, internalised racism on immigrants, and in general how immigrants are being treated today. It’s great that the film shines a light on said issues, but because the script is so on the nose, the themes are practically devoid of all meaning. Subtlety is not in this film’s vocabulary.
The film is also surprisingly meant to be a comedy and when the main actor was in one of the most successful comedy tv shows of all time, you’d think it would be funny. There was only one time I remember myself actually laughing at an intended joke and that’s it. The only other good joke came from the credits where Gary Barlow says they’ve all gone by now, after showing behind the scenes footage. (I do appreciate when a film does that, so it earns some brownie points there).
I must say that I am a fan of Kunal Nayyar (even if I have only seen him in The Big Bang Theory). So I was quite excited that he was the lead of this but unfortunately the accent he puts on here is so unconvincing that it takes you out of it almost immediately.
To be frank, everyone’s acting is unconvincing – I know that they are only children, but they are the worst offenders. There were glimmers of when the acting seemed to be improving (for me it was mainly the ghost of Christmas past scene) but of course it has to go straight back to a mind numbing musical number. I did genuinely think that young Eshaan’s actor did a good job – maybe the only one who was trying. I only wish we saw more of him.
Ultimately, Christmas Karma, is an almost offensively bad adaptation of A Christmas Carol which is scared to be the Bollywood musical it promises to be with its forgettable numbers and terrible lip syncing. When paired with unconvincing performances, an unfunny script and no subtlety whatsoever – it makes for a really painful cinema going experience.
Christmas Karma is now in cinemas nationwide.