Your Christmas or Mine?: Film Review
It wouldn’t be the holiday season without a slew of festive romantic comedies and Your Christmas or Mine? is a cute but forgettable addition to the bunch.
The film begins the night before Christmas Eve, when new lovers James (Asa Butterfield) and Hayley (Cora Kirk) say goodbye to each other at Marylebone Station before going back to their respective hometowns of Kemble and Macclesfield. Just before their trains depart the station, they both make the split-second surprise decision to switch trains and join their partner for Christmas – so James ends up in Macclesfield and Hayley ends up in Kemble without her phone. Uh oh!
You’ve got to suspend your disbelief with the concept of this because it’s highly unlikely they would have been able to switch trains like that in the first place. And you have to suspend your disbelief again when Hayley manages to find her way to James’s family estate without Maps. But you just have to roll with it because the film’s heart is in the right place and it has a sweet story to tell.
I enjoyed watching the class clash between Hayley and James’s posh father Humphrey (Alex Jennings) and housekeeper Iris (Harriet Walter) and James with Hayley’s working-class clan, headed up by dad Geoff (Daniel Mays) and mum Kath (Angela Griffin). The situation is even more awkward because neither James nor Hayley told their respective families about their new relationship so the parents have no idea who they are. Despite the frosty beginnings, James and Hayley manage to forge a bond with their Christmas hosts and it’s very wholesome.
The writing isn’t the strongest. It really put me off that Hayley’s relatives had to be identified by festive T-shirts saying “Hayley’s father” etc so the audience could understand who they all were. Smarter writing would have established those relationships in a less obvious way.
Nevertheless, it is still funny at times and that’s because the actors do their best to sell it, particularly Mays and Hayley’s family as a whole. David Bradley is amusing as the grouchy neighbour Jack while Lucien Laviscount is so cringeworthy as Steve (the less said about him the better). Kirk is very likeable but I didn’t buy her chemistry with Butterfield (who is fine) and I wasn’t particularly invested in them as a couple.
Your Christmas or Mine? is a bang-average festive romcom but it’ll still make you feel warm and fuzzy though.
On Prime Video from Friday 2nd December