| For anybody who wants a depressing Christmas movie without the cheer or holiday spirit, then The Holiday List is for you. For the title confusion, I think it was originally called The Holiday List in the UK, then North American distributors decided it should be called It’s Christmas for an unknown and probably pointless reason, and then at the last minute switched it back to The Holiday List upon release. You should be able to find it under both titles. | | 2024
Directed by: Jamie Adams
Screenplay by: Jamie Adams
Starring: Brittany Snow, Lucas Bravo
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Mary, the mother to Wesley and Jackie, mother-in-law to Charlie, and wife of Samuel died earlier this year. It will be the family’s first Christmas without her. Wesley (Lucas Bravo) and his wife Charlie (Brittany Snow) are the first to arrive at his dad’s house. I think it’s supposed to be a new house for the dad since they mention a few times that he has not unpacked yet, but this is a nice, large house and large property on the outskirts of a small town, this is not the type of a house that a retired elderly man downsizes to. Regardless, Samuel has not put up any Christmas decorations nor even a single light to welcome his family.
Charlie mentions that she thinks he’s sad. Wes replies “Oh, he’s always been drinking his life away, it has nothing to do with sadness.” The dysfunction and complete lack of caring or empathy for other family members is relentless, and the film definitely falls on the depressing side of dysfunction as opposed to the comedic side of dysfunction. Not helped by the fact that Charlie and Wesley obviously don’t like each other, Jackie hates Charlie solely for the fact that she got along with their mother, and Jackie has a new serious girlfriend but isn’t making the family introductions easy on her. And they all drink a whole lot of wine just to make everything worse.
Brittany Snow’s Charlie is the best character. She makes a stupid drunken decision which is supposed to propel the plot forward (it kind of does, but the movie just revels in the dysfunction way too much to actually make use of a plot), she then spends the rest of the movie trying to come clean without actually admitting to anything, so she very humoursly talks in circles that the audience will get but none of the other characters do.
As should be clear by now, “It’s Christmas” is barely Christmas. There are no Christmas decorations, no Christmas lights, no warmth or whimsy or holiday spectacle; it’s a very bare movie with a limited production, and a hand-held camera. Given the depression that fills the characters, they are going for a downtrodden Christmas feel, which can be unusual for this time of year.
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