Nobody does toffee-nosed dysfunctional family snark like the Brits. This one, made for Netflix, is a doozy of an ensemble piece, as if Gosford Park was remade by the Fawlty Towers lot for 2021 audiences. The musical cues are freaking brilliant. The casting is nuts. The settings are such fun, especially the gorgeous old manor house that suffers all the frailties of any home that's been haphazardly updated over 300 years.
Kris Marshall plays the owner of the venerable pile (and the ruins outside it where even older buildings died) and despite a not-deep scripted character is not outclassed in deadpan one-liner delivery by John Cleese & Kelsey Grammar as the aging Brothers Christmas: one a stiff old shootin' squire and the other a tanned Florida playboy with a girlfriend half his age.
The setup:
Caroline Christmas Hope (Nathalie Cox) is obsessed with getting Christmas perfect for her sisters' visit. The sisters take every opportunity to spite and sabotage each other while their mother alternately suggests peace and pours more wine. Family laundry is not so much aired as hurled at each other with daggers attached. Then Daddy comes back, just in time for family dinner.
You can see the first gag being set up a British country mile away, but it doesn't land for ages, while the rest of the plot - and characters - spin wildly off in unexpected directions. There are frisky moments & risque jokes, bewildered children, nosy neighbours, and a vicar who doggedly smiles through a chaotic parish Christmas market.
There's a lot of family history missing that could have been sneaked in as flashbacks instead of leaving the viewer to fill it in from 3 snappy lines of dialogue and a sight gag. I'm not sure why Nathalie Cox was cast for Caroline, who carries a lot of the scenes, when other actors in lesser roles had the chops to do more with the part. And the denouement unfolds as slowly as senior citizens wobbling into line for holiday dinner.
Despite the flaws, this is overall as watchable a bit of holiday snark as you could wish for, with plenty to chuckle about and a few lightly played tender moments as well.
Kris Marshall plays the owner of the venerable pile (and the ruins outside it where even older buildings died) and despite a not-deep scripted character is not outclassed in deadpan one-liner delivery by John Cleese & Kelsey Grammar as the aging Brothers Christmas: one a stiff old shootin' squire and the other a tanned Florida playboy with a girlfriend half his age.
The setup:
Caroline Christmas Hope (Nathalie Cox) is obsessed with getting Christmas perfect for her sisters' visit. The sisters take every opportunity to spite and sabotage each other while their mother alternately suggests peace and pours more wine. Family laundry is not so much aired as hurled at each other with daggers attached. Then Daddy comes back, just in time for family dinner.
You can see the first gag being set up a British country mile away, but it doesn't land for ages, while the rest of the plot - and characters - spin wildly off in unexpected directions. There are frisky moments & risque jokes, bewildered children, nosy neighbours, and a vicar who doggedly smiles through a chaotic parish Christmas market.
There's a lot of family history missing that could have been sneaked in as flashbacks instead of leaving the viewer to fill it in from 3 snappy lines of dialogue and a sight gag. I'm not sure why Nathalie Cox was cast for Caroline, who carries a lot of the scenes, when other actors in lesser roles had the chops to do more with the part. And the denouement unfolds as slowly as senior citizens wobbling into line for holiday dinner.
Despite the flaws, this is overall as watchable a bit of holiday snark as you could wish for, with plenty to chuckle about and a few lightly played tender moments as well.