Like most sequels, if we’re honest, Your Christmas or Mine 2 does more of the same, but less effectively
“Where the eff did that come from?”
Having resisted the influx of festive films that has emerged over the last few years, I took a first step this last weekend with Amazon’s Your Christmas or Mine?, mainly on the presence of such luminaries as Alex Jennings and Harriet Walter in the supporting cast. Whilst not necessarily blown away, I found it amiable enough and clearly enough people felt the same, as Your Christmas or Mine 2 has just been released on Prime Video.
Perhaps inevitably, it is more of the same except not as good. This time, writer Tom Parry and director Jim O’Hanlon uproot us from the traditional Britflick setting to the Austrian Alps as Asa Butterfield’s James and Cora Kirk’s Hayley attempt a blended family Christmas. His aristocratic father has plumped for five star luxury whilst her working class Macclesfield family have booked something a little less refined – can you guess what happens next…?
This time around, the picture is complicated by Hayley and James being a couple moving to the next stage as they approach graduation. The presence of a new girlfriend for James’ dad plus a best female friend from the past for James himself points directly to where the plot will go. But there’s some dodgy writing as far as the class-based culture clash goes, with some gobby posturing soon undone by the chance of a luxury freebie (and just how much would seven last-minute flights on Christmas Day cost btw…?!).
Whilst never being terrible, this sequel is just less funny, less engaging and less involving, particularly where the main thrust of the film lies, which is essentially a giant strop. Butterfield and Kirk prove bland, Angela Griffin and Daniel Mays are loudly northern and Jane Krakowski putters around, barely asked to come out of second gear as the brash US girlfriend of Alex Jennings’ kindly Lord, his presence not quite enough to pull this out of the snowdrift.
