Adapted from a trio of children’s books by Love Actually and Four Weddings and a Funeral screenwriter Richard Curtis, this is an eager-to-please animation that wants to have its Christmas cake and eat it. That Christmas attempts to harness the hokiest aspects of festive nostalgia – every surface in the small town of Wellington-on-Sea is covered with a thick meringue of snow – while also arguing that holiday traditions should be torn up and revamped (turkeys are the main beneficiaries of this plot line) and ticking off a list of hot-button themes: childhood anxiety, broken homes, the climate crisis, loneliness.
There’s a little too much crammed into this overstuffed stocking of a movie, but the gorgeous, lovingly detailed animation style – it’s the second feature from British studio Locksmith Animation (Ron’s Gone Wrong) – and the zippy action sequences should prove a winning combination for family audiences.
In UK and Irish cinemas now/on Netflix from 4 December
