Christmas Chronicles, The (2018)
Dozens and dozens of Christmas movies are released every year. Occasionally one of them, like 2003’s Elf, breaks through the pack and becomes a part of our holiday traditions, working its way into regular seasonal rotation alongside other classics such as A Christmas Story, Miracle on 34th Street, and It’s a Wonderful Life, among others.
But in 2003, the same year Elf was released, we also saw Blizzard (directed by LeVar Burton and featuring voices by Whoopi Goldberg), Stealing Christmas (a TV movie starring Tony Danza), and National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation 2: Cousin Eddie’s Island Adventure, a movie I once almost got into a fist fight over whether or not it even existed. The point is, of all the holiday films that get released each year, only a few go on to become perennial favorites. The rest end up out in the dumpster, along with shreds of wrapping paper and candy cane wrappers.
The first act of the 2018 Netflix exclusive The Christmas Chronicles feels more like a Hallmark Christmas movie than a big budget film. After a series of home movie clips in which we run through several of the the Pierce family’s previous Christmases, viewers are dropped into 2018 only to learn that Doug (the family patriarch) has passed away, taking much of the family’s Christmas spirit with him. Left behind are Claire, the mom who works extra shifts at the hospital to make ends meet; Teddy, the fifteen-year-old who, with little parental supervision, has started running with the wrong crowd; and Kate, the eleven-year-old daughter who picks up the slack by doing the dishes, taking out the trash, and preparing dinners. Despite everyone’s (or at least Claire and Kate’s) efforts, the Pierce family is unraveling.
The plot begins to roll when Claire is called into work on Christmas Eve, leaving Teddy and Kate home by themselves. Kate, using video she recorded of her brother stealing a car as leverage, convinces Teddy into staying up late to attempt to capture video of Santa delivering toys. Ensuring they’ll capture footage of the jolly one and inspired by Kevin McCallister, the kids set up a series of traps guaranteed to trip up Santa. Somehow all of this works, and before long not only have the siblings caught footage of Santa (which turned out to be remarkably easy), but hidden themselves in the back of his sleigh. When St. Nick discovers the stowaways mid-flight, things go terribly wrong. The sleigh crashes to earth, causing a series of incidents that must be corrected in order to save Christmas: Santa’s reindeer must be recaptured, his bag of toys must be located, and, perhaps most importantly of all, Santa’s magic hat which was lost in the crash must be found. Santa’s hat, we learn, is the sole source of all his magic.
If the first act of the film is Home Alone the remainder is Adventures in Babysitting, with a dash of A Christmas Carol. Santa, Teddy, and Kate — stranded in Chicago and without the use of Santa’s magic — must find Santa’s missing reindeer, toys, and hat with enough time left to still deliver toys to every good boy and girl around the globe. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and before the sun comes up the trio has stolen a car, called upon elves for help, and performed a musical number in quite possibly the cleanest jail in Chicago.
Despite several timely references — namedropping Uber, Amber Alerts, a new Dodge Charger, and even “fake news” for example — The Christmas Chronicles feels like it takes place a decade or two ago. In one particularly dated plot point, Kate carries a Sony camcorder with her throughout the film, which she uses to capture the evenings events. Not only is the camcorder jarringly dated (my youngest asked what it was), but it’s a constant reminder that Kate and Teddy, ages eleven and fifteen, are the last two kids on earth without cellphones.
Along the way, Teddy and Kate learn the reason for the season, but it’s a little disappointing to see Santa’s elves getting so much screen time. A cross between Gnomes and Minions, Santa’s CGI helpers tinker their way into every crisis, saving the day time and time again. Both Santa and the kids are lucky he brought the elves along — without them, his sleigh would have remained busted, Santa would have spent (at least) the night in jail, millions of children would have woken up to empty stockings Christmas morning, and Kate and Teddy would most likely be dead.
The Christmas Chronicles is fun to watch, despite the fact that most of the actors seem like they’re in the middle of a TV movie. The one exception is Kurt Russell, who brings a sack full of his personal charm to the role of Santa. (How tough it must be for St. Nick to live in a world where, despite knowing every single person’s name, every gift they’ve ever asked for, every detail of their modern life, and being able to pull any gift at all at any time out of his red coat, people still don’t believe he’s the real deal!). Many of the character choices throughout the film are questionable, and by the time Santa’s playing piano in jail cell with Steven Van Zandt’s band and a group of prostitutes on backup vocals, you start to wonder how exactly we got here. There are lots of questions about where Santa’s magic begins and ends and how things work on Christmas Eve, but this is a Christmas movie, and the time to check your logic was before starting the film, not during. For what it’s worth, there’s a payoff at the end worth sticking around for.
Will be people watching The Christmas Chronicles five or ten years from now during the holiday season? I doubt it. It’s a bit formulaic with few surprises along the way to earn a spot in regular rotation. That being said, there are worse ways to spend an evening than sitting down in front of the fireplace with a glass of eggnog and watching Kurt Russell do his thing. Ho, ho, ho!