Christmas Survival

If you're British with a dysfunctional family, or, enjoy British humour, it's brilliant. If not, c'est la vie.

A Countryside Christmas/Surviving Christmas With The Relatives (2018) -

"Mummy! The pope mobile is here!"

The actors in this film were all very good and it was nice to see Gemma Whelan in a feminine role for a change and I mean no disrespect by that, it's just that I've only really seen her as Theon's sister in 'Game Of Thrones' (201-19) and a rough and tough lesbian in 'Queers' (2017), so it was a nice change and she made a good mum character.

I also really liked Julian Ovenden's Dad character of Dan, again I had only really come across him recently in his gay role in 'Bridgerton' (2020-). He was a pleasant father figure here and his performance in general was good.

I even enjoyed Ronni Ancona's part too. I have tended to find that she's quite extreme, but actually she was quite bearable in this one as Vicky. The character was nicely balanced.

They all faced a lot of issues that could have easily been resolved or avoided, but it would have been a very boring film without it.

And I must confess that it did start to drag towards the end where there was no suggestion that it was going to go anywhere and it didn't really, but it was still enjoyable, because it felt real for the most part, like a Christmas that I could recognise from a British home, because it wasn't all cookie baking and tree decorating and snowmen building contests, like the offerings from Hallmark and so on.

And that was the main gist of the film, a standard holiday with the kids at home, interrupted by the visiting relatives and no matter how much prep had been done, there still hadn't been enough time to do everything necessary. I start my next year's Christmas shopping as soon as I'm done each December, but I never seem to get everything else sorted in time, so I recognised the pressure.

It did smack of a typical Richard Curtis type of film in a lot of ways, because it was about a family that didn't really have any money troubles, but they thought that they were. That was no council flat or bedsit they were living in. They were also much more of a film family than a typical British dynamic in most realities.

It had some fairly good production values and nobody in the cast gave a duff performance, but there was room for improvement. It still felt sweet in some ways and had a great feeling of the season too.

721.56/1000.

Some of the actors were good. But it was like different characters playing individual roles that never quite became an ensemble. There were so many individual plots that nothing was interesting. Truly nothing was interesting about this film.

For a Christmas movie with a well used storyline...that being just as the title says - Surviving Christmas with the Relatives - it is quite enjoyable. Not as silly or madcap as most...it is a good little timewaster to watch with the family after Christmas day winds down.

Christmas Survival is the story of a very dysfunctional extended family with a lot of drama during the holidays.

The couple who live in the English countryside are very likable, which is important because almost everyone else - except the exchange student Soon - is a nightmare on wheels.

Risque enough to deal with issues like addiction but wholesome enough that I wouldn't call it a black comedy, exactly.

I think this is a pleasant holiday film for people who don't like traditional Christmas movies.