Watching the execrable Kirk Cameron’s Saving Christmas from 2014, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a film as insufferably smug with itself. It’s also one of the most poorly received commercially released movies of all time, routinely appearing on lists of the worst films ever made and I can see why. It’s not poorly made or anything, it’s just that the film is so disgustingly pleased with itself, while presenting some incredibly questionable ideas as 100% verifiable facts.
As his annual family Christmas party starts to go downhill thanks to the moaning of his cynical brother-in-law Christian (Darren Doane, who also directs), former star of TV show Growing Pains Kirk Cameron, playing himself, tries to save the holidays by showing him that Jesus is still a crucial part of the heavily commercialised holiday. This sounds all well and good, but there’s something very fishy going on here with the film pushing the agenda that not only is commercialism okay, but that God wants us to spend lots of money on crap. Former child star Cameron is now an active Evangelical Christian who runs his own ministry. They produce loads of profitable TV content, radio shows, books, online courses and stuff, so Cameron is clearly really into the commercialisation of Christ.
And what a weird, awkward little film it is. It’s the only movie you’ll ever see where the guy despairing that the holidays have been hijacked by the big corporations is treated as the bad guy. It’s a unique argument and one that Cameron does a lousy job of trying to win - in his own movie. Christian is so upset with what the season has become that he’s (gasp!) gone to sit in the car. Kirk will not stand for this anti-Christmas automotive protest, so most of the film is just him telling Christian a bunch of stories, told via cheap dramatic recreations, that he is convinced will make him understand that Santa presents and all that other stuff that doesn’t appear in the bible is still totally cool with the man upstairs.
Yes, Kirk really is telling his sister’s husband that he needs to stop whining about “how many kids can be fed?” with the money blown on Christmas and to accept that it’s God’s will to fritter away loads on crap you don’t need. It’s radical stuff, with Kirk accusing anyone who disagrees with him of “drinking the Kool-Aid”, with the whole thing feeling like one big knee-jerk response from people with fingers in their ears. People who love Christmas so much that it’s practically an act of terrorism to suggest that any of this might be a little un-Christian. It dawns on me that this is the same sort of selective reasoning we’ve witnessed since this Covid thing began, from conspiracy theorists who refuse to follow rules and instead scour the internet for any sort of info or like-minded folk who might support their arguments and desire to do whatever they bloody well want.
Cameron’s film does its damnedest to find stuff in the good book and in Christian folklore to make him feel better about himself. Some choice cuts include the concept that presents are cool, because if you sit them under the tree and look at them a certain way, they might look just like a little village…why, just like Bethlehem! And, if you look up…why, it's a star! Just like in the Nativity story!
He also suggests that fir trees are a biblical tradition because…something to do with the apple tree in the Adam and Eve story? Also, giving and receiving lots and lots of material goods is fine because Jesus himself was a gift-wrapped present to us all from God. He even - and I’m not making this up - goes as far to say that “materialism” is good, because in being born, Christ took “material form.” It’s the sort of dumbfounding selective religiosity that you normally expect from thick racists and terrorists.
Further proof of Cameron’s refusal to accept anything that makes him feel bad - when his film got 0% on the Rotten Tomatoes review-aggregation website, he denounced the entire thing as a conspiracy against him. Surprise, surprise. This makes me even sadder as I realise that Kirk is the brother of Candace Cameron Bure who has made some delightful TV Christmas movies and I don’t want to associate her with this messed-up dude.
This is less a movie and more a smug sermon delivered from inside a parked car. It’s baffling and excruciatingly unfunny. This isn’t a cinematic experience, more a piece of misguided propaganda for Cameron’s “movement”, inviting everyone to celebrate the season as gaudily as he does, so maybe he’ll feel like less of a dick about it. The logic isn’t convincing in the slightest but Saving Christmas is definitely worth checking out for WTF giggles. This one is total jingle balls and I bet it’s probably Donald Trump’s favourite Christmas flick.
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