Richard Curtis wrote another Christmas film?! Where do I sign up? After all, Love Actually is among my favorite holiday re-watches. Will That Christmas join those ranks?
No. It won’t.
It’s not bad, but this is a file-and-forget piece of Christmas animation. It has all the staying power and memorability of Arthur Christmas. As far as animated Christmas films go, I imagine that puts That Christmas somewhere between Klaus and Polar Express, without being as good as either.
The cozy animated town is Wellington-on-Sea in England. And like any good Richard Curtis
film, we follow multiple separate groups of equal importance. Little Danny (voice of Jack Wisniewski) is trying to handle his first holiday post parental divorce. Mismatched twins, rule-follower Sam (Zazie Hayhurst) is a talented writer, but horribly shy while her rebel sister Charlie (Sienna Sayer) aims to be a rock star. Finally, Bernadette (India Brown) is the kind of kid who rewrites the Nativity play with a modern take that nobody enjoys.
The Christmas holidays are approaching and so is a blizzard. The kids are treated to quadruple Algebra and a lice inspection, which is the best way to go into the Christmas break. A snow day follows, and everyone gets to stay home from school, except Danny doesn’t get the memo, and without a parent at home to tell him, he goes to school alone where he is corralled and forced to have a school session with everybody’s least favorite teacher.
I don’t care if this is a breakthrough moment in world history and the teacher turns out to be Gandhi; there are reasons coming to school when other kids do 
not have to is considered punishment; it seems doubly so when it’s the day before Christmas break.
Meanwhile, all the adults in town go to a wedding, get plastered, and never make it home in the blizzard, leaving their children with “WTF?” as a new Christmas tradition.
This is all better than it looks, and of course, Santa (Brian Cox) saves the day, cuz that’s what Santa does.
Oh, and a small child gets lost, too. This becomes a big deal.
A lot happened in this film, much of it good; I wish it were a tad more memorable.
Every holiday season, there are about a dozen new films that get my attention. Of that dozen, I’d say only two or three are worth seeing. This is one of the good ones, although that distinction is not solid. That Christmas won’t win any awards, and you probably won’t see it more than once -especially compared to Love Actually, which I’ve now seen two dozen times- but it’s kinda sweet and kinda fun. So, hey, kinda enjoy Christmas, ok?
The children of Wellington-on-Sea
Anticipate the Christmas to be
But a blizzard with a frown
Turns the place upside-down
And leaves the kid to celebrate parent-free
Rated PG, 91 Minutes
Director: Simon Otto
Writer: Richard Curtis, Peter Souter, Andrew Dawson
Genre: Is this really the best we can do this season?
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Christmas fiends
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Untrusting parents
