Early in the new Australian film Christmess – a bittersweet drama about an alcoholic actor trying to turn his life around – one character asks a question familiar to many cinephiles: what’s the best Christmas movie? The protagonist, Steve Le Marquand’s Chris, delivers an answer familiar to anyone who has been on the internet in the past two decades: Die Hard, the damn fine, explosive Bruce Willis classic that has been igniting debate about what exactly constitutes a Christmas movie since yuletides of yore.
If Christmess – a very absorbing film, tenderly written and directed by Heath Davis – were a more banter-prone production, the characters might have waded into the debate themselves. For instance: what’s the difference between a film set during the festive season and a film about Christmas? It’s a perfectly fine argument to have with relation to Hollywood, a huge purveyor of yuletide fare. But not so much for Australia, given that this country, for a long time, had few examples of either.
Australia’s scant Christmas classics include 1947’s Bush Christmas (starring Chips Rafferty) and its 1983 remake (featuring the first film role for Nicole Kidman), as well as 1987’s Bushfire Moon (with Bud Tingwell as a scoundrel mistaken for Santa Claus) and 1998’s chaotic comedy Crackers.
But local film-makers have been topping up the stocking of late. This year alone has delivered three new yuletide flicks set down under: Christmess; the dysfunctional family dramedy A Savage Christmas; and the bushfire-themed Jones Family Christmas.
Last year there was Christmas Ransom, a children’s movie about thieves robbing a toy shop, and 2021 brought Christmas on the Farm, about an Aussie expat in New York who pretends to be a fair dinkum farmer to secure a book deal. In 2020 came A Sunburnt Christmas, starring Daniel Henshall as a crook trying to retrieve a bag of stolen cash helped by kids he has tricked into believing he’s Santa.
Given that we now have a sizeable amount of presents under the tree, the question beckons: what are the best Australian Christmas movies?
Let’s start with the dramas. Both iterations of Bush Christmas are nothing special: middle-of-the-road movies with jaunty, outdoorsy narratives involving youngsters pursuing horse thieves. Bushfire Moon fares a little better: Bud Tingwell is an appealing faux-Santa in a story that’s pleasant but rather Disney-fied, about a farming family suffering through droughts. The resolution wraps things up in a neat bow, involving (groan) some good old-fashioned miracles.
There’s nothing remotely Disney-fied about Christmess, and there sure as hell ain’t no miracles. Le Marquand plays protagonist Chris – the alcoholic actor – with superb relatability and a broken-down, dejected demeanour. Chris has help from his sponsor Nick (Darren Gilshenan, also excellent) but remaining on the straight and narrow is made even harder by a chance encounter between Chris and his estranged daughter while he’s working as a mall Santa.
The film ends bittersweetly, with optimism but nary a hint of cheese. I’d go so far as to say it’s Australian cinema’s best Christmas drama – depending on (here we go again!) how we define one.
There’s also, you see, 2007’s Boxing Day, which isn’t just a great Australian film but in my opinion one of the best from the noughties. Configured to resemble one long continuous take (in the vein of Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope and Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Birdman), director Kriv Stenders follows another down-and-out man named Chris (played with distressing brilliance by Richard Green). He’s living in home detention, nervously preparing lunch for his family.
Like Le Marquand’s Chris, he longs to stay out of trouble but it’s a bumpy ride. Things begin to get uncomfortable when an old associate (Stuart Clark) rocks up unannounced and puts him in a precarious situation.
The film contains several Christmas-isms, including the terror of preparing a meal, the terror of facing family and the terror of eating said meal alongside said family. But it is set on Boxing Day, so perhaps we can’t call it a Christmas movie. A Maxwell Smart line comes to mind: missed it by that much!
And now for the rib-ticklers. Most of the latest ones have been pretty iffy: 2021’s Christmas on the Farm is a tame farce, reheating the kind of premise we’ve seen a zillion times before, and last year’s Christmas Ransom is klutzy and saccharine. The superior A Savage Christmas brings a whiff of freshness to the dysfunctional family narrative, though it loses the plot in its final act.
Plus, it’s no Crackers. Rather than attempting to navigate the nuances of Australian quirk, the writer and director David Swann’s kitschy 1998 film faceplants right into it, gorging on festive season shenanigans in white-bread suburbia. Its most sensational scene depicts the family pooch leaping towards a steak and causing an epic barbecue explosion that cooks it to a crisp, contributing to a tradition of Australian films with tragic ends for our canine companions (see also: Snowtown, Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior, Red Dog, Tracks). It’s certainly shambolic but it has a good energy and finds ways for the camera to get in on the joke.
One of the pleasures of A Sunburnt Christmas is that it, too, evokes comedy through visual staging – and it has a much more satisfying storyline to boot. By the time this playful bad Santa picture gets into the cuddly stuff, it’s very much won us over. It’s my pick for Australian cinema’s best Christmas comedy. Depending on how you define – oh, here we go again …
Do you have a favourite Australian festive flick? Share it in the comments
Christmess is available to stream on Binge from 15 December
