A bus load of characters!

Rating: 10/10 (14 November 2003)

Watching this film felt getting on a crowded bus and having talk to everyone on it! Too many stories, each one of which felt like the initial draft of the first and last chapters of separate screenplays which had been stitched together, using the general idea of "Christmas" as a unifying theme and to coincidentally (I'm sure) goose holiday box office revenues. The way that many of the actors involved have been circulating on talk shows, en masse, to promote the movie makes me suspect that each was given a percentage of the gate receipts in return for their participation and promotion. The movie provided a few smirks and smiles but I never really got to care much what happened to any of the characters. The story line with Firth and his Portugese cleaning lady had potential but then Colin goes back to London, learns passable Portugese in just one week, which is typical of the flaws in just about every storyline. While the stories are all light confections, the only jarring notes came when the auther/ director introduces a little anti-American left wing cant by portraying the President as a cartoonish caricature combining a groping Bill Clinton and a bullying George Bush. If I was American I would have also been insulted by the typical "middle America" (Idaho, I think) girls who are portrayed as attractive but empty headed bimbos always eager for a shag or orgy with anyone at anytime, anywhere. Americans don't come off looking good in this movie which is a surprise considering that the US will be it's greatest market. But then, I guess the participants are smug in the belief that the average American theatre goer isn't sophisticated enough "to get" the inside joke. It's always more satisfying when you can take their money AND insult them at the same time.