That almost imperceptible sound you hear rustling above the snow is the gossamer-thin wistfully romantic softness of a thousand Christmas movies floating above your head on a wind laden with gingerbread spice and tinsel threads.
Festive films are by their very nature constructions of hopes and dreams and seasonal happiness, and as such, are as lightweight as they come, creatures borne of that delightful sense that comes with every Christmas that things can, and will, be better if only the right circumstances prevail.
It what makes them such a joy to watch, and even if they are a little narratively repetitive and overstuffed with the same welcome tropes and clichés, they make the end of a long year feel a little lighter, a tad more buoyant and who doesn’t need to give that gift to their ailing spirit?
Even so, when you come across a film like The Noel Diary, which cleaves to the same essentially attractive idea of redemption and soul-nurturing reinvention but with added thoughtfulness and emotional heft, resembling an indie drama much of the time more so than a cute slice of festive escapism, you can help but appreciate that someone has gone that extra mile to tell a slightly more original story than normal.
The film doesn’t necessarily look like it’s going to gently break the mold at the outset however.
It begins in the midst of New York City as a crush of eager book fans, many of them women, brave the cold and the slushy snow, to get their copies of the latest book by bestselling author, Jake Turner (Justin Hartley) signed and to have a book to play make-believe with the idea that they share a mystical connection with him.
It’s all light and frothy, augmented by the festive loveliness of NYC as its Christmas decorative best and it suggests that we are in for another light, fun, sweet Christmas film that will give us a big optimistic hug, buoy our spirits and leave no trace of itself once the credit roll.
There’s nothing wrong with that, of course, and festive escapism is good for the soul, but there’s a cautious sense of excitement when Jake leaves the bustle of reader adulation and PR management behind him and heads to his home in Connecticut, where he plans to spend Christmas alone, just as he always has and likely always will.
His housekeeper Svetlana (Andrea Sooch), a walking-talking stereotype who nevertheless suggests Jake isn’t entirely unloved – she’s paid by him, yes, but her affection for a man who could be her son is obvious and quietly heartwarming – leaves him be and you wonder what might cause someone with so much at their feet to be so isolated and alone?
The eminently pleasing thing about The Noel Diary is that while it very quickly pulls the estranged-dead-mother card, it doesn’t do so in the kind of melodramatic way so beloved of the genre.
Everything about Jake confronting his past, form the awkward call from the lawyer (who nonetheless asks Jake to sign a book for his wife) to his arrival at his old family home which has seen far better days, stuffed to the quintessentially American suburban home dream with the detritus of his mother’s determined hoarding, feels authentic.
Granted, it’s hyper-authentic in that way only indie films can manage, but it feels real, and it’s clear that Jake has had the weight of the world on his shoulders for quite some time, a burden that is not shifting anytime soon and which will only increase as he clears out his mum’s house.
Even his meeting with a mysterious young woman who lurks across the street like some sort of horror movie stalker wannabe – there are some odd moments in this film such as this one, and yes, making her wait later on in a freezing car while he has a long, warm reconciliation chat with his estranged dad – is handled with a modicum of authenticity, their conversation going much as you’d expect two strangers in uncomfortable emotional proximity to go.
The woman is Rachel Campbell (Barrett Doss), who’s there in search of anything she can glean about her mother who once worked for Jake’s family as an au pair, an unwed mother who was forced to give her child up for adoption and whose details, beyond an address where she once lived, are unknown to Rachel.
She’s turned up at Jake’s old family home hoping he may have answers for her, and though she makes it abundantly clear that she’s engaged and planning to marry her accountant fiancé, you know that, like so many absent boyfriends before him, that he’ll be gone before the credits roll.
It’s a standard trope of the romantic comedy genre, and while The Noel Diary has some meta fun with the idea of what rom-coms are – at one point, Jake even explains to an innkeeper in an impossibly cute B&B (they all are but to be fair, this is New England) exactly what a rom-com is and why him having two rooms free messes with the usual trope of one room only free that must be shared – it’s largely happy to lean heavily into the genre, milking the idea for all it’s worth about true love trumping all others and making its presence felt at Christmastime because, let’s face it, when else would it happen?
What marks The Noel Diary as a little different to the Christmas norm is that gives the respective traumas of Jake and Rachel, who bond over Nina Simone and Jake’s avuncular dog Ava, time to air themselves and be known in a way that feels real and not simply contrived for a pivotal scene to push an unforgiving narrative to its inevitable finish line.
It’s. not of course, a deep dive into Freudian therapy or the exhausting grief of emotional PTSD but it’s far more than many other films of the genre manage, and while the ending is precisely what you’d expect with the sort of falling in love that most people takes weeks, not mere days, to successfully pull off, the film feels a cut above and a step removed from most Christmas films, daring to be emotionally weighty in a way that most of its compatriots would never even attempt.
The Noel Diary is a rare and precious thing – an escapist slice of Christmas romanticism that delivers on that redemptive hopefulness we all hold within ourselves for life to be more magical and light and possible, but with some extra emotional grunt, dialogue that actually feels appealingly fun and grounded at the time, and two protagonists who are clearly meant for each other but who arrive at their foregone end point of love true love with something approaching real human experience, a veracity of love, life and Christmasness that makes this film one of the best of the season.