If you haven’t seen the first Your Christmas or Mine movie, don’t panic. This chirpy romcom sequel from Prime Video has got the warm blanket familiarity you would get from a feature-length British telly Christmas special; something to put on while you fight over who gets the last Malteser in the Celebrations tub. Sex Education’s Asa Butterfield and Cora Kirk return as James and Hayley, a couple in their final year at uni. He’s a pleasant posho, she’s working class from Huddersfield. Last time they accidentally spent Christmas apart: each with the other one’s families. This year, they’re bringing their clans together for a festive getaway on the ski slopes. Hilarity – well, sitcommy cock-ups and culture-clash cliches – ensues.
In time-honoured Christmas movie fashion, it begins with an airport dash, as James and Hayley rush to catch their plane. Waiting at the gate is James’s aristocratic dad (The Crown’s Alex Jennings, outclassing pretty much everyone else here); he has brought along his new American girlfriend, Diane (Jane Krakowski, playing nearly the same self-centred socialite role she had in Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt). Diane is a self-help guru with a New York times bestseller under her belt, and a habit of namedropping (“Like I said to Elon …”). No character escapes caricature: Hayley’s mum and dad (Angela Griffin and Daniel Mays) are down-to-earth northerners, big of gob and even bigger of heart (and they’ve packed their matching family Christmas jumpers in Tesco carrier bags).
Of course, there’s a farcical mix-up with the hotels: resulting in the crew from Huddersfield checking into a 5-star luxury Alpine resort, while the toffs end up in an Airbnb hovel with a goat. Which gives Diane the American girlfriend one of the film’s tastiest lines: “We’re staying in the dark ages! What’s for dinner? Bubonic plague.” Otherwise, the script is mostly tasteless, a buffet of blandness. Instantly forgettable.
• Your Christmas or Mine 2 is released on 8 December on Prime Video.
