Cert – PG, Run-time – 1 hour 54 minutes, Director – Gurinder Chadha
Christmas Eve, tight-fisted and disparaging businessman Mr Sood (Kunal Nayyar) fires all his staff and is visited by three spirits (Eva Longoria, Billy Porter, Boy George) to confront his past and grow forgiveness.
Perhaps the one thing worse than a preachy musical is a preachy musical with bad songs. Add in some truly dreadful lip-syncing that puts disgruntled bands on 90s Top Of The Pops to shame and each new song in Christmas Karma becomes cause for an eye roll as the joy of charity and togetherness during the Christmas season is crammed down the throats of everyone watching well before the first ghost, the uncanny valley CG vision of Jacob Marley (Hugh Bonneville in the film’s only non-live-action role, making it seem all the odder), appears to the latest iteration of Scrooge.
Scrooge, in Gurinder Chadha’s take on A Christmas Carol, comes in the form of Kunal Nayyar’s Eshaan Sood. A bitter, critical figure whose past appears to be dealt with more in-depth and personally than some other iterations of the character, and when doing so Nayyar’s performance becomes much less played up and theatrical. As the ghosts who visit Sood throughout Christmas Eve come into play, starting with Eva Longoria’s Ghost of Christmas Past, Chadha creates engagement through the new details that she introduces to this modern British telling. Through Sood’s childhood, moving to Britain after his Indian family is forced to leave their home in Uganda – having been there for multiple generations after building railroads for the British.
A want for a sense of belonging and family hang over Sood, alongside grief still held from his own unconfronted personal losses. They push the ideas of forgiveness and alongside compassion to others a hint of self-compassion appears. The songs might still be completely naff with on-the-nose lyrics and unmemorable tunes – whether as a big musical number or just used for another montage – but emotion does start to come into play. And as it did I found myself, unexpectedly after the far-from-subtle nature of the various stages of set-up, warming to the film and what Chadha brought to the narrative.
It’s in quieter moments, however, where things are most effective. Where the obvious isn’t stated and repeated. In one particular moment Sood asks a question about what he’s witnessed, we expect Billy Porter’s wonderful Ghost of Christmas Present to quote back the businessman’s comments to charity collectors instead he just turns and looks at him, silent. It’s my favourite, and perhaps the most effective, moment of the film. As is the case for the other moments where the emotions are successfully stirred, the brief shots where things aren’t shouted from the screen but are just allowed to sit amongst the characters as tragedy and actions of the past reflect into the present.
There may still be big in-your-face song and dance numbers which disturb the flow of things and reintroduce a difficult to get on with tone of overemphasised cheer, but, for all the issues the film has, and there are a good number of them, I found myself starting to embrace it. And I don’t think I can put that down to the festive spirit either – not for it only just being on the cusp of mid-November, but the fact that the more the film pushed its festive and seasonal goodwill the more tacky it seemed, almost like a touring production for schools. Simply the fact that when Chadha starts to deal with the emotional aspects and get into the themes that she seems to be really interested in, especially the past and familial history of the central character, there’s an interest formed that helps things along. While forgiveness might not be created for all the problems there are in Christmas Karma, a sense of more goodwill certainly grows towards it, fittingly, once the spirits start to appear.
Despite the awful songs and lack of subtlety a sense of warmth grows towards Christmas Karma as it gets into the past of its take on Scrooge. There may still be a good deal of issues, but Chadha’s work with the brief emotional aspects manages to just about see it through.
Just A Little Bit Random 