Christmas Carole (2022) -
As a huge fan of 'A Christmas Carol' by Charles Dickens, whether in book form or on film, I have seen my fair share of these "Alternative" versions too, usually tied up in some Hallmark romance or something similar, but not all of them good and actually quite a lot of them have been pretty awful.
As such I went in to the viewing of this one with some trepidation, especially as a lot of the British attempts at seasonal films, that I've seen lately, have been a bit poor to say the least and some of the cast didn't exactly inspire me.
I have to say though, that this adapted and modernised take on my favourite story was actually really good, definitely one of the better ones.
I could criticise the production for it's choice to utilise Mark Benton as Carole's Father, but that would only be because I don't generally like him in anything. In fairness, he played the part as required, whereas Jo Brand was way out of her depth as "The Ghost Of Christmas Present".
Aside from them however, even Nish Kumar in the role of "The Ghost Of Christmas Yet To Come" wasn't awful and Alex Carter, whom I have despised ever since he first appeared as Lee in 'Hollyoaks' (1995), seemed really apt playing Carole's Brother Ade. It was the best I've ever seen from him and I never thought that I would ever feel sorry for one of his characters as I did in this film.
Surranne Jones in the title role of "Christmas" Carole, did what was required of her too. The direction of the film meant that she needed to be a tad over the top, but it didn't offend me as others have before (Tom Arnold, Kelsey Grammar and Jim Carrey to name but a few).
Although I wasn't sure how it might translate over the pond, I loved the nods to British Christmases past with the use of 'The Snowman' (1982) and 'Morecambe & Wise'.
I actually thought that the guy playing Eric Morecambe (Jonty Stephens) really nailed it and even Ernie Wise (Ian Ashpitel) sounded just like he should.
I also liked the way that they updated things and adjusted some elements to fit a more technological time, but I really hoped that the poor woman playing Jackie Marley (Rosie Cavaliero) had prosthetics applied and didn't actually go through the ordeal of plastic surgery to look like she did.
Okay, so it was a bit cheap in places, but it contained a modern message about consumerism, as well as a word about family estrangement and the consideration of others feelings and finding out what was real, before making assumptions. A lot of that was covered in the source novel and in the films more true to that material of course, but the production were clever here to adapt to a world that is in trouble and change the messages accordingly.
790.21/1000.
