Just Another Christmas is a fascinating foreign import from 2020, a Brazilian-made comedy drama with an ambitious, mind-bending premise. Family man Jorge (Leandro Hassum) loves his clan but absolutely hates Christmas. On a typical Christmas Eve night after being irked and irritated by his squabbling in-laws and mooching brother, Jorge reluctantly dresses up as Santa for the kids then accidentally tumbles off the roof. This comes immediately after a creepy bit where, amidst Jorge's grumbling, his long catatonic, mute Grandpa (Levi Ferreira) suddenly whispers an ominous warning in his ear that he will soon "find out what Christmas is good for."
Next thing you know, Jorge wakes up and it's Christmas Eve morning again. No, it's not some Groundhog Day scenario. Turns out it's Christmas Eve the next year. The film's wacky conceit has him waking up every day finding he's missed a whole year he can’t remember and having to deal with the fallout of all the mistakes he's made and all the things he's missed .
The gimmick here is pretty much 'man who hates Christmas gets nothing but Christmas' but it's kind of tragic as all he can do is watch and suffer the consequences of his blunders. The film starts out pretty humorously, leaving us guessing exactly where it's going to go but gradually turns more existential and depressing, with Jorge powerless to prevent himself missing births, deaths, graduations, even an affair that he had, leading to his separation from his wife (Elisa Pinheiro).
It's a film full of jarring tonal shifts as we leap from absurd humour to tragedy in a heartbeat. Maybe it's a Brazilian thing? It feels like this is meant to tug at the heartstrings but feels rather muddled and messy. The emotional stuff doesn't totally work but I have fun with this one as I rarely have a clue where it’s all headed.
The make-up effects are subtle but convincing as I almost genuinely believe that Jorge and Laura have aged about twenty years, leaving me curious as to how old the actors actually are. It's a weird film, but decent, different and marks Hassum as a real comic talent.
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