Christmas Karma Review

A Christmas Carol is one of the most famous stories in literature and has been adapted countless times. Gurinder Chadha has modernised the story as a musical that focuses on British-Indian culture.

Mr. Sood (Kunal Nayyar) is a wealthy businessman and a lonely miser. After ruining Christmas for many people, he gets a warning from the ghost of his descended business partner (Hugh Bonneville) that he will be visited by three ghosts who set out to change Sood’s way.

Chadha is one of the most successful British female directors. Most of her films have focused on the British-Indian experience (What’s Cooking? and Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging were the only major outliers). Her best-known film is Bend It Like Beckham, which is a cultural touchstone; Chadha even named her production company after the film. Nor is this the first time she has put an Indian spin when adapting a piece of classic English literature, since she turned Pride and Prejudice into a Bollywood-style musical.

Sadly for Chadha, Christmas Karma will go down as one of her worst films. On Rotten Tomatoes, it has one positive review, and that’s only a three-star review from The Sun. Robbie Collin of The Daily Telegraph gave it a zero out of five, whilst The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw gave it a one out of five. Scores and reviews from users of IMDB and Letterboxd have been equally brutal.

A Christmas Carol was at its best during the “Christmas Past” section. This was where Mr. Sood’s Indian heritage became important to the story. He was shown to be a victim of the Expulsion of Indians from Uganda. His family had status in Uganda, but when he was forced to move to England, he lived as an impoverished refugee and a victim of racism. This experience influenced Sood’s outlook, where he would make something out of himself, become wealthy, and emphasise he’s a Hindu so didn’t celebrate Christmas. This experience turned him into a bitter old man, even though Nayyar would be too young to be a victim of the Expulsion. One character even pointed out that the event happened 50 years ago, but Nayyar is only 44 in real life.

Chadha’s family were victims of the Expulsion from Uganda, so the director was able to use her experience. Chadha is usually at her best when there’s an autobiographical element in her films.

A Christmas Carol adaptations are common. The Simpsons even made a joke about it in the episode “’Tis the Fifteenth Season” and at the time of writing, two Hollywood adaptations are in the works, one by celebrated filmmaker Robert Eggers, the other set to star Johnny Depp. It’s hard for a new version to stand out. The film does try to bring in some modern themes by showing people struggling through the cost-of-living crisis and the refugee crisis. The Sood family’s welcome to Britain involved far-right protestors telling the Ugandan-Indians to “go home.” It felt similar to recent protests outside migrant hotels. However, when the film introduced the Ghost of Christmas Present (Billy Porter), Christmas Karma just went through the Christmas Carol plot points that audiences would know. Except for the modern setting, there was nothing unique or interesting in this version of A Christmas Carol.

Christmas Karma was a musical, but it was a poor offering in that genre. The songs were bland and forgettable with no choreography. It has some of the worst lip-synching I’ve seen in a musical movie. All of this put Christmas Karma on par with Nativity 3: Where’s My Donkey? There seemed to be an air of cheapness to Christmas Karma, but it couldn’t have been that cheap because there was location shooting in Kenya, and the cast featured recognisable American actors Eva Longoria and Billy Porter. Was this done to help the film get an international audience? I would be amazed if Christmas Karma gets a global audience beyond streaming shovelware.

Christmas Karma had a weird cast. It was made up of the British B-list, featuring the likes of Danny Dyer, Pixie Lott, and Boy George. The biggest British actor in the film was Hugh Bonneville, and he was only in one scene. He was probably doing Chadha a favour since they worked together on Viceroy House. Nayyar was best known for The Big Bang Theory, and every time he spoke, I just thought of Raj Koothrappali, especially when he was excited.

Christmas Karma did have an interesting nugget by looking at the Ugandan-Indian experience, but it was a poor family musical, and an unremarkable adaptation of A Christmas Carol despite its British-Indian twist.