Cert – PG, Run-time – 1 hour 38 minutes, Director – Jack Spring
Community service arranging a production at a retirement home may help isolated Aubrey (John Bradley) come out of his shell and enjoy Christmas for the first time in 30 years.
Aubrey (John Bradley) has never read A Christmas Carol, or any Dickens for that matter, he prefers to live in historical fact than fiction; yet he still speaks as if he’s been plucked from the pages of one of his stories. His manner of speaking, particularly about the busyness and hassle of Christmas, feels almost legally different enough from Scrooge – although Dickens’ words are read (in part by Jim Broadbent and Celia Imrie) later in the film. He’s an isolated figure who spends his days translating heavy books on Napoleonic history into English, or painting models inspired by the era; there’s a good deal of autistic-coding to how the character behaves and comes across. His festive season aims to be spent tending to such models in his small flat. However, after a set of perhaps one too many ‘therefore’ events that leads to him puncturing a mobility scooter wheel in a shop – an incident that literally everyone else in the shop standing and watching seems to not acknowledge the wrong of the other person – he’s given community service at a retirement home.
The home is at risk of being sold to a millionaire (Dustin Demri-Burns) to convert alongside three others into luxury flats, which leaves warden Ellen (Sophia Di Martino) and her father (Dave Johns) who used to run the home before falling ill, searching for a plan. That plan comes in the form of trying to get an arts license by putting on a production that could class as community theatre, with the time of year the staff and residents gather together to put on a performance of A Christmas Carol. You can fill in the rest from there.
There’s plenty of the kind of festive schmaltz we’re all used to from the various whimsical characters (Richard E. Grant plays a toymaker running a craft shop with Gepetto-like white hair and moustache) – you can even add the romance of the season as sparks start to appear from nowhere between Ellen and other community service figure Kugan (Kiell Smith-Bynoe). Yet, for all the boxes that are ticked – as is done in many a Christmas film, particularly those landing an early November release date that are often destined to come and go by the next week – there’s a likable sense to this particular film. Bradley brings an eventual warmth to Aubrey, helped by Di Martino’s own lifting a number of scenes and interactions, and the light chuckles cropping up here and there, especially once the plot actually kicks in, with help from Smith-Bynoe’s comedic abilities.
The film has its occasional charms, chuckles and hints of emotion – the opening sequence where we see a young Aubrey’s connection to a toy Napoleon form in the wake of being bullied at a new school and losing his mother on Christmas Day has an early hit – and for the most part you generally know what you’re getting. And, as with each new take on A Christmas Carol – as I write this another Hollywood take is just days away – if there’s enough heart or simple goodwill towards the redemption tale you can get away with it once again. It’s the case for Aubrey Flint and his eventual tale of opening up amongst community theatre, with help from a supportive set of characters and cast who bring a mild charm to the festive familiarity on display.
Warm performances bring a festive forgiveness to the familiarity on display in Merry Christmas Aubrey Flint’s narrative, which holds a few helpful chuckles once the very busy set-up is out the way.
