Today's offering is another thoroughly mad film, 2010’s Summertime Christmas, a supremely lacklustre movie made by people with a really not-so-subtle political agenda. On the surface, this is an incredibly bland tale about two of Santa’s elves who go on Summer vacation to America, befriend a family and then everyone learns the true spirit of Christmas. But the film’s cheesy façade is hiding a real anger about something. There’s a lot of talk between characters about how all the countries in the world have passed a new law meaning parents can no longer discipline their kids, so this means the naughty list is growing and Santa is pissed.
I had to look this up, but apparently first-time director Andrew Von Ehrenkrook has a bee in his bonnet about the UN 1990 Convention on the Rights of the Child, that granted all children a comprehensive list of rights, including the right not to have their parents kick the crap out of them. Some people interpreted this as taking away a parent’s right to discipline their kid, and Von Ehrenkrook makes it pretty clear that he feels a parent should be able to thrash their child or we’re all going to hell. Early scenes feature poorly mocked up newspaper headlines about society going to the dogs and a frankly terrifying Santa delivering a televised ultimatum to the U.N. All this under the guise of a seemingly innocent kiddie movie. It all feels seriously miscalculated, like they’re railing against an issue that isn’t really there, trying to whip right wing yahoos into a frenzy about an imagined ‘nanny state.’
This could all be quite interesting if the film wasn’t so amateurish, meandering and sleep-inducingly dull. Elves Nora (Monica Eder, no other credits) and Elwood (Josh Roy) are good-looking, pleasant people, but the performances are stilted and forgettable. The moral seems to be about striving to be good, about the ripple effect of kind deeds, but it’s so blatant and heavy-handed in its message about discipline that all that gets lost.
The story of these vacationing elves soon plays second fiddle to a plot about kids putting on a 100% faithful version of the nativity, as this must surely cure the world of its wickedness. It’s all presented as though the filmmakers genuinely believe it’ll be a shocking revelation to viewers that Christmas has something to do with Jesus. It might even be humorous if it wasn't all so ham-fisted and boring.
Things start out promisingly enough, hinting at a fun fish-out-of-water tale with the naïve elves touching the lives of a family in the midst of some unspecified nationwide depression, no doubt due to those meddling undisciplined kids. They decide what the world needs to get out of this downturn is a second Christmas in June. Problem is, the filmmakers are never really able to properly convey just how lack of discipline has led to all this. The kids we meet all seem pretty cool until one moment where they run amok in a church that feels completely inauthentic. Then the ‘naughty’ kids seem to learn their lesson easy enough through prayer and faith and stuff, rather than smacked bottoms. This begs the question whether the U.N. act everyone was so annoyed about is really such a bad thing?
There is one unintentionally funny bit where it looks like an angry mum is about to go completely apeshit on her kid, but then stops when she realises a cop is watching. The way it’s all framed as a huge injustice is bizarre and unintentionally hilarious.
It’s a confusing, clumsily thought-out film that introduces these magical elves then forgets to give them much to do. A great romance is hinted at for Nora and Elwood, but it all just fizzles out, bar a bit of handholding. For a film that purports to be so angry, it’s all really square.
It also poses big, provocative questions but then shows us that the world’s economy can be saved by magic berries that ‘taste like Christmas’, so it’s no surprise this didn’t trouble the Academy. Von Ehrenkrook hasn’t directed since, probably because society isn’t quite ready for a Christmas film railing against the injustice of not being able to thrash the life out of your kids whenever they piss you off. Go figure.
Comments