(courtesy IMDb)
Charles Dickens lives again!
Well, not so much the author who long shuffled off this mortal coil and who may yet be haunting people at Christmas to scare them into leading and more selfless lives; rather, in Christmas Karma, by Bend It Like Beckham‘s Gurinder Chadha, we are given yet another take on the seemingly endless conveyor belt of adaptations of the author’s classic tale of festive redemption, A Christmas Carol.
It’s easy to see why Chadha has joined the long line of people adopting this Christmas classic; the story has it all – great loss, terrible actions, darkened souls, healing and liberation to be the best you can be and avoid, rather happily, eternal damnation after you die.
Perfect narrative material for the festive season which is understandably predicated, given its religious origins, on the idea that here is the time of the year, the time of all times, when we can take stock, look at ourselves and make changes for the better.
And if it takes some spirits to make it all come about, then all the better.
By and large, Christmas Karma does a good job of hitting all its marks, creatively reinterpreting them to a British-Indian context and specifically that of the East African Indian diaspora who were forced, through a series of decisions in newly independent countries like Kenya and Uganda, to flee the only home they have ever known for a country, the United Kingdom, that was often ambivalent, and sometimes openly hostile, about taking them in.
Written by Chadha, whose only family was forced to leave Kenya in the wake of that country’s independence, Christmas Karma is heavily autobiographical, and it is this emotionally resonant aspect of the story which often hits home far harder than the usual tropes and cliches of Dickens’ timeless tale.
We are taken into the early life of curmudgeonly, filthy rich financier Eshaan Sood (Kunal Nayyar), who is as Scrooge-y as you might expect, his schtick including hating on charity choirs outside of picture-perfect churches fetchingly decked out for the season, refusing to give charity to the less well-off (whom he predictably regards, as is common with far right anti-immigrant groups these days, as parasitic freeloaders; Chadha obviously makes the case in Christmas Karma that they are not) and hating on relatives and those he considers to have let him down.
By giving Sood, courtesy of the Ghost of Christmas Past, played with Día de los Muertos by Eva Longoria, a full and affecting backstory, far more than more other characters in other adaptations get, Chadha gives the film far more emotional heft than it might otherwise have.
You grieve, and are allowed to grieve, the many and sustained losses that Sood endures, and it means that this part of the story, the final act apart in parts at least, hits harder than any other part of Christmas Karma which understands, because of the lived experience of its writer and director, what it is to lose a lot and to react by putting up fearsomely protective barriers (though no one, is of course, accusing Chadha of anything even remotely Scrooge-like).
(courtesy Bolly Spice)
While the Ghosts of Christmas Present and Future (Billy Porter and Boy George, respectively, at their respective flamboyant best) acquit themselves well, it is mostly because so much time and effort goes into establishing Sood at someone who got lost and broken and couldn’t ever find his way out, preferring to protect himself with wealth and power.
That’s no protection at all as the ghost of his dead business partner Jacob Marley (Hugh Bonneville) points out, and it will surprise you not a jot by the end of Christmas Karma that Sood repents of his darkly protective, monstrously selfish ways and gives away money and things and love and smiles to everyone including his devoted employee Bob Cratchit (Leo Suter) and Christmas loving nephew, Raj (Shubham Saraf) and even a cabbie played with cheerful tunefulness by Danny Dyer.
So, Christmas Karma goes pretty much where you expect it to go, and with an exuberant Bollywood joyfulness and embrace of vibrant Indian culture that lends it a distinctive and welcome point of difference to many other adaptations.
That’s the good news.
Where a Christmas Karma falls down, and not fatally so thankfully, it that it goes for the saccharine, the emotionally sentimental and the melodramatic when just good old plain emotions would have more than done the trick.
As we’ve explored in the time Sood spends with the Ghost of Christmas Past, and in the final act, where the inevitable passing of Tiny Tim aka Tim, assuming Sood stays a miserly, cruel nightmare (which we all know he won’t), will leave you in understandable tears, Christmas Karma does not want for genuine hard-hitting emotional heart-tugging.
When Chadha leaves it to do that, Christmas Karma excels; the problem is that many times, she over eggs the emotionalism and we’re left with scenes that either fail to affect you at all or which have their effect diluted by a misplaced, overly sentimental song, of which there are far too many.
Speaking of the music, the opening and closing scenes, full of Christmas market Bollywood musical brio, are a delight, all festive exuberance, happiness and joy that bookend Christmas Karma wonderfully, and even some of the later scenes, where Sood recognises the error of his ways and makes up for lost time, reconnecting with all kinds of people in some rather lovely ways (though are just plain odd and all too awkwardly brief, redemptive box ticking for no reason other than adherence to classic narrative touch points, bring a smile to the face and some tapping to the feet.
Christmas Karma is by no means a great big lump of A Christmas Carol adaptation coal, and there’s a great deal to like about it, even at times its overall earnestness, but it does in the end fail to fully stick the landing, hinting at greatness and Christmas classic territory but never quite getting there which is a pity because as an idea, that of the immigrant experience overlaid onto Scrooge, it is inspired and really hits home when it’s allowed to do so; sadly, it doesn’t quite realise its potential which means it makes you feel good to a point before scattering whatever effect its had, much like the various ghosts disappearing back into the ether.