Christmas as Usual

As Norwegian with Indian girlfriend watched this movie and found it hillerious both of us.

I relly relate to the "Its christmas" statement. And from my point of view many Norwegians behaves like this st christmas times. Everything has to be as its always been. And my Indian girlfriend related with the Indian main character for being to loud in an norwegian setting.

I feel like this wasnt about racism it was about cultural differences and gow difficult it can be atleast in big events as christmas.

Even tho the storyline wassnt the best i still find it really funny and i recommend watching it.

I watched the movie with very high hopes but ended up being highly disappointed. It is a lost opportunity and I feel it would probably offend people from both the countries. I am Indian and no, we don't behave like Jashan. His character was downright rude and obnoxious. I felt the Secondhand embarassment throughout. Thea's family was equally hostile towards Jashan. Eventually it was a mess where no-one could evoke any sympathy! I think the only likeable characters were the child and her mother. The last 5 minutes of the movie were good. Rest of the movie is completely directionless in my opinion.

The cultural clash awaits as newly engaged Jashan and Thea fly to Norway to her family for celebrating Christmas. She hasn't informed her family about Jashan being an Indian, not even his full name and she wants to have a perfect Christmas celebration to find the right time to break the announcement. But his family is not nice towards Jashan with her ex boyfriend living next door to make couple of crucial moments complicated and she doesn't think preparing Jashan or giving him an heads up was necessary. Will she have her Christmas and save her love story forms rest of the story.

It's the age old love story of two people from different parts of the world, falling in love and one of them trying to fit into the world of the other. The problem is how one toned the characters are, giving little chance to empathize with any of them. Things keep getting hard for Jashan and what follows next was intended to be funny but it did not evoke any laughter. Limited India to the population count and spicy food was also not in good taste. Now characters can be self centered, but the narrative has to be balanced which wasn't the case here. This just didn't give enough to root for Thea as the film only succeeded in making me feel sad and sad for Jashan.

Why would you pack a kurta while travelling to Norway for Christmas?

Funny view on culture crash between Norway and the outside world.

Remember that there are only 5 million Norwegians, and Jul and May 17 are days where we are focused on our traditions. Our ways are a bit strange.

Jashan is representing the outside world. Nothing to do with his nationality specifically.

As a Norwegian I felt this made me think of how hung up we are on our traditions.

25% of our population migrated to USA in the late 1800s. For those left it was a crisis and the national romanticism started in Norway. Bunad, Jul tradition and more were important when rebuilding our nation's self esteem.

It's a Christmas movie. Just like hundreds of them. You expect to have a good time, drop some laughs from the awkwardness and that's all. We cannot always expect "Love Actually".

And for the people who thinks that's awful and makes sense and the characters are not believable... come one, it says right at the beginning that is a true story!

Most of the characters have ridiculous situations and apart from artistic freedom, thinking that some of them happened to the real "Shazam" and Thea... well, I can relate. Mothers in law and unfitting can be like that.

So, it's not Love Actually as said before but also it is not mass production Christmas's Walmart movies.