If it wasn't for Jasmin Tabatabai's brooding glamour and Alexandra Neldel's pushed-up boobs, I would have walked out mid-movie. "Meine schöne Bescherung" is noisy, hysterical and utterly pointless. Everything is exaggerated to the point of ridicule and empty mannerism. What little charm there is (Santa gone bad, patchwork promiscuity, precocious youngsters), we have seen a million times before, and with more panache. The cliché extends even to the movie's cast; half the usual suspects of contemporary German cinema are there. "Meine schöne Bescherung" has "made for TV" written all over it, but I can't for the life of me figure out who this might appeal to. A couple of years ago director Vanessa Jopp said in an interview it was her dream to "make people wiser". Dream on.
Review of Messy Christmas
