We have made it to Christmas day after what has been one hell of a year. Whether you take that 'hell' positively or negatively is up to you, but either way, I hope you all have a great Christmas and a Happy New Year! For the final review of the year, I always try to do a Christmas classic and do this year I decided on A Christmas Story (1983). This may not be particularly well known here in the UK, but it is seen as a staple of Christmas in the United States, even being shown on a 24-hour loop on Christmas day. With that kind of reputation, I couldn't not watch it to see what the hype was all about. The film's narrative is very simple as we follow Ralphie (Peter Billingsley) as he tries to convince his parents to buy him a bb-gun. My overwhelming feeling coming out of this film was 'is that it?' I am not entirely sure why this has become a staple of Christmas over the pond. I didn't get anything out of it. I didn't find it funny; I didn't find any of the characters endearing or interesting, the narrative being so loose failed to grip me, there was nothing there. In fact, I found it really boring. The narrative structure is made up of smaller scenes and situations tied together to make a narrative rather than a pure through-line throughout the film, and this means that I couldn't engage in anything going on, especially as I didn't find any of these scenes interesting or fun. I have even criticism that the film is too cynical for a Christmas film, but I don't mind that. It is good to get different views on Christmas rather than just the same messages over and over again. But it does make the film bleak in how it looks which just adds to the boredom as there was nothing visually interesting to grab my interest. One thing I will say is that the performances were good but other than that I thought it was actually pretty terrible. I have to think that a lot of love for this film comes from nostalgia. With it being a holiday classic and staple for years, you can imagine people watching it every year as kids and this then planting it in their minds. And there is nothing wrong with that, nostalgia is a powerful thing. But watching it for the first time as an adult I just thought it was crap. Sorry to end these reviews on a downer but can't be helped. I should have saved Stuffings (2021) for today.
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