That Christmas begins with a well-recognized dilemma: It’s Christmas Eve and Santa should navigate treacherous climate whereas delivering his extremely anticipated items.

We meet the benevolent legend, voiced right here by Brian Cox, as he rides by means of a nasty winter storm of robust winds and low visibility. A horrible sickness has left him with just one reindeer (Guz Khan) to tug the sleigh. Tensions between the 2 are so excessive that Santa, at one level, threatens to get a self-driving car subsequent winter. However whereas the chances are usually not in our hero’s favor, the happiness of youngsters world wide — and particularly these within the fictional English coastal city during which the narrative is about — depends upon him overcoming them. 

Premiering on the BFI London Movie Competition, That Christmas is an enthralling animation from Locksmith (Ron’s Gone Flawed) that’s well-poised to develop into a basic. It may be simple to sneer on the arrival of a brand new Christmas film. Real vacation cheer is hard to conjure and, if you happen to’re not the supposed viewers for Hallmark-type saccharinity, the festive fare seemingly conjures up extra exasperation than pleasure. However this one, tailored by Peter Souter and Richard Curtis from the latter’s collection of youngsters’s books, slyly avoids the standard mawkishness by grounding its whimsical story in the true and prickly feelings of life. 

Directed by Simon Otto (Learn how to Prepare Your Dragon), the Netflix function boasts a robust voice forged in addition to a story that efficiently finds the center floor between winking self-awareness and the suspension of disbelief that propels all Yuletide tales. It’s Curtis’s first foray into animation and though the characters are digitally rendered, the story faucets into the identical genuine energies that made his earlier works so beloved. 

Much like Love, Truly (which makes a humorous cameo right here), That Christmas observes how the lives of a number of folks parallel and intersect each other. Santa, in voiceover narration, introduces us to Wellington-on-Sea, a tight-knit multicultural English enclave that turned the middle of considered one of his most difficult Christmases. His yarn begins a number of days earlier than the vacation, when the native youngsters stage Three Smart Ladies, a riotous and progressive rendition of a play concerning the Three Kings.

A collaboration between outspoken 15-year-old director Bernadette (India Brown) and her fretful buddy Sam (Zazie Hayhurst), the manufacturing consists of up to date cowl songs and replaces shepherds with natural vegetable farmers. It’s a refutation of the previous and a imaginative and prescient of a radical and extra sustainable future. Additionally it is a chaotic catastrophe that doubles an environment friendly showcase for this interlocking narrative’s principal characters. 

Danny (Jack Wisniewski), a brand new child on the town, is the middle round which all the opposite plotlines orbit. He’s received a crush on Sam, however their respective personalities — she’s anxious, he’s shy — means they is likely to be doomed to like from a distance.

When not daydreaming of Sam, younger Danny fantasizes about Christmas along with his father, whom he’s anticipating to come back go to for the vacation. The boy’s life is organized round distracting himself, particularly since his mom (Jodie Whittaker) works lengthy days and nights as a nurse. There’s a pleasant thread of That Christmas that finally focuses on a budding friendship between Danny and his neighbor and instructor Ms. Trapper (Fiona Shaw), a cantankerous lady who makes the Grinch appear amiable.

Whereas Danny wrestles with isolation and the emotional fallout of his mother and father’ divorce, Sam worries that her twin sister Charlie, who’s on a mission to trigger mischief, will destroy her probabilities of getting presents from Santa. The pranks Charlie performs, which mortify her sister and exasperate their mother and father (Rosie Cavaliero and Andy Nyman), embrace among the movie’s punchiest set items and most humorous one-liners, serving to preserve its general comedic tone.

In one other a part of city, Bernadette and her little sister Evie (Bronte Smith) are getting ready for the vacation with their mother and father, the hilarious McNutts (Lolly Adefope and Rhys Darby), and a few household associates. Coupled with the dedication of the performances, the variety of those characters — each phenotypically and by way of character — assist to enliven That Christmas, making it a movie that may nonetheless pleasantly shock.

The motion actually kicks off after Bernedette’s mother and father and their associates (Mrs. Mulji, voiced by Sindhu Vee, and the Forrests, voiced by Alex MacQueen and Katherine Parkinson) head out of city for a marriage. It’s a daring alternative for somebody to have a good time their nuptials so near Christmas, however the adults, desirous to spend a while away from their children, rush off the island.

By no means thoughts that faculty was canceled due to the foot of snow, or the grey fog within the distance. It’s not till after the marriage, when the mother and father be taught the ferry is now not operating, that they notice the fact earlier than them: The climate patterns will make it more difficult to return, presumably forcing them to overlook Christmas with their households.

For all its narrative preoccupations, That Christmas hardly ever feels prefer it’s shortchanging any set of characters or their arcs. There are moments when you possibly can inform the film is an amalgamation of various books, however, for probably the most half, Curtis and Souter’s screenplay strikes confidently between threads. That dexterity strengthens the impression that this Christmas story can be a group portrait. The hassle to seize the essence of a neighborhood makes it simpler to just accept extra fantastical components, or moments that tip towards contrivance.

Otto makes probably the most out of the 91-minute runtime, so That Christmas by no means feels abruptly paced or disjointed. The give attention to particulars — from how diligently the person who tends the lighthouse (Invoice Nighy) adjustments the city bulletin day-after-day, to the lengthy simmering feuds between completely different residents — makes the movie really feel immersive, and this fictional village alive.