I'm feeling a little out of step here, what with all the glowing reviews. This was easily the most horrendously boring, dreary, interminable film I've ever sat through.
Each time a scene ended my heart broke anew, knowing I was about to endure another 15 or 20 or 10,000 minutes of pointless, ambling dialogue that accomplishes nothing. The film bumbles from one disjointed, drawn out slab of a scene to another, characters kiss, act amateurishly, kiss again, argue, storm out, run back, kiss, dance, storm out again, storm back, put on an accent so cringeworthy I wanted to swallow my own neck, and everyone laughs (ON SCREEN - no one in the audience laughs once). This happens several thousand times, and each scene lasts four hours.
After days of this excruciating torture I thought "at least it will be over soon." Then one of the 14 million characters announces that it's Christmas Eve. I groaned audibly, racked with anguish. There's still another two days of this to go. I hoped I'd left enough water for my dog. Seemingly months later another character angrily announces that Boxing Day is cancelled, causing me to bellow THANK GOD, slap my knees in relief and stand to leave. Sadly this still wasn't the mercy killing I prayed for, and only a fraction of the running time had passed.
One thing I cannot stand in any film is a 'playful' food fight. Awful. Awful. Awful. Awful. AWFUL. A grown up should never throw food at another except in pure fury, which should be returned in kind. So of course, when the film finally approaches something resembling a dramatic moment, some lass laughingly chucks a cake at a bloke. And instead of this being the instigating point for a mass brawl, as it would be in any reasonable household, the actors all have a chance to show HOW MUCH FUN IT WAS TO WORK ON THIS PROJECT and start lobbing cakes at one another. At this point the film went from being simply awful to being the datum point from which I will measure all future suffering. I have been through several rectal surgeries in my life, causing no small amount of temporary faecal incontinence. I would smilingly lie down for several more, rather than live through this ageless crime again.
Although Boxing Day is sold as a Christmas rom com, be warned. There is barely any Christmas, certainly no com, and bizarrely, no Boxing Day. I don't think they actually ever get to Boxing Day. Someone else will have to confirm that. I'd punched my own eyes closed by that point. I can only assume the cast and crew realised they were in breach of the Geneva Convention and wrapped things up a day early. This marks the only charitable and decent decision they made.
My daughter pointed out that by the end of the film nothing is different from the beginning. An astute and depressing observation. I'm going to go ahead and presume that rather than this being the filmmakers' existential comment on the futility of change, they simply forgot to include a plot. Thankfully, the children weren't disappointed, and were laughing with me at how hysterically bad this flattened arc of a panto truly is.
It brought us closer as a family in our shared contempt, and for that, at least, I am grateful.
Merry Christmas.
Each time a scene ended my heart broke anew, knowing I was about to endure another 15 or 20 or 10,000 minutes of pointless, ambling dialogue that accomplishes nothing. The film bumbles from one disjointed, drawn out slab of a scene to another, characters kiss, act amateurishly, kiss again, argue, storm out, run back, kiss, dance, storm out again, storm back, put on an accent so cringeworthy I wanted to swallow my own neck, and everyone laughs (ON SCREEN - no one in the audience laughs once). This happens several thousand times, and each scene lasts four hours.
After days of this excruciating torture I thought "at least it will be over soon." Then one of the 14 million characters announces that it's Christmas Eve. I groaned audibly, racked with anguish. There's still another two days of this to go. I hoped I'd left enough water for my dog. Seemingly months later another character angrily announces that Boxing Day is cancelled, causing me to bellow THANK GOD, slap my knees in relief and stand to leave. Sadly this still wasn't the mercy killing I prayed for, and only a fraction of the running time had passed.
One thing I cannot stand in any film is a 'playful' food fight. Awful. Awful. Awful. Awful. AWFUL. A grown up should never throw food at another except in pure fury, which should be returned in kind. So of course, when the film finally approaches something resembling a dramatic moment, some lass laughingly chucks a cake at a bloke. And instead of this being the instigating point for a mass brawl, as it would be in any reasonable household, the actors all have a chance to show HOW MUCH FUN IT WAS TO WORK ON THIS PROJECT and start lobbing cakes at one another. At this point the film went from being simply awful to being the datum point from which I will measure all future suffering. I have been through several rectal surgeries in my life, causing no small amount of temporary faecal incontinence. I would smilingly lie down for several more, rather than live through this ageless crime again.
Although Boxing Day is sold as a Christmas rom com, be warned. There is barely any Christmas, certainly no com, and bizarrely, no Boxing Day. I don't think they actually ever get to Boxing Day. Someone else will have to confirm that. I'd punched my own eyes closed by that point. I can only assume the cast and crew realised they were in breach of the Geneva Convention and wrapped things up a day early. This marks the only charitable and decent decision they made.
My daughter pointed out that by the end of the film nothing is different from the beginning. An astute and depressing observation. I'm going to go ahead and presume that rather than this being the filmmakers' existential comment on the futility of change, they simply forgot to include a plot. Thankfully, the children weren't disappointed, and were laughing with me at how hysterically bad this flattened arc of a panto truly is.
It brought us closer as a family in our shared contempt, and for that, at least, I am grateful.
Merry Christmas.