'A Christmas Carol': Not an ideal festive watch

Gurinder Chadha’s adaptation of the 1843 Charles Dickens novella ‘A Christmas Carol’ is a musical that takes place in London and Uganda, and has a British-Indian twist. The film features a mixed-race cast with Asian, White, Latin and Black people representing different classes of the British society.

The story is similar to that of the all-time revered classic, only the backgrounds of the characters and setting differ. A money-lender, Mr Eshaan Sood (‘Big Bang Theory’ star Kunal Nayyar), an Asian variant of Scrooge, embittered by the travails in early life (expelled from Uganda by Idi Amin and living a life of poverty initially), has turned into a loaded, penny-pinching meanie. Timely visits from his dead partner Marley’s ghost (Hugh Bonneville) and the spirits of Christmas past, present and future (Eva Longoria, Billy Porter and Boy George) force him onto a more generous giving track.

One would have expected a warm, sentiment-driven Christmas film, but Chadha seems to have transformed the classic story into something charmless, boring and messy to boot. She devotes a little too much time to chart Mr Sood’s immigrant Punjabi-Ugandan-British roots, making the narrative lopsided. Sood remains a meanie for most of the film.

Sood, the wealthy middle-aged bachelor, is mean to his employees, his housekeeper Mrs Joshi (Shobu Kapoor), and even to the one person who likes him, Bob Crachit (Leo Suter), who has a large family to support. The about-turn, towards the end, into ostentatious giving doesn’t sit well. The character arc of this Scrooge variant feels slapdash and inorganic.

The script is a little too literal and shallow to garner appreciation. The tone is never consistent. The lip-syncing is atrocious. The music credited to Gary Barlow, Nitin Sawhney, Shaznay Lewis, Panjabi MC, Chadha, and Ben Cullum is largely forgettable.

The lyrics of songs like “Christmas Karma”, “Manz a Scrooge”, “A Gift is Still a Gift”, “Money Talks”, “Pain of the Past”, “Rise Up”, “The Big Bakwass Song” and “Favourite of the Year” fail to sound meaningful or further the story. The last two display Bollywood-styled dance production. The staging and choreography are scatty at best.

The dialogues sound meaningless. The editing is rather clumsy and adds to the overall chaos here. The plotting is hindered by narrative turns that distract attention from the emotional beats that need to be hit. The assorted cast fails to deliver performances that keep the audience emotionally engaged. The visual nature of the narrative, with its overdone doses of forced sentimentality and clueless slapstick, amplifies the lack of subtlety and imagination in this telling.

Chadha does try to raise social issues revolving around inclusion, class, poverty, materialism and race, but the effort feels rather laborious.

The inclusion of Indian British Bhangra singers Jassi Sidhu, Malkit Singh, and British pop idol Boy George is rather wasted here. There’s nothing much for them to do other than pop up as celeb bait. The production quality feels severely compromised. The visual clutter, technical sloppiness and cheap CGI add to this film’s run of woes.

This Ketchup Entertainment release is unlikely to get you into a festive holiday mood.