That Christmas

That Christmas is a 2024 animated Christmas fantasy comedy film produced by Locksmith Animation, animated by DNEG Animation, and distributed by Netflix. Directed by Simon Otto, in his directorial debut, from a script by Richard Curtis and Peter Souter, it follows entwined storylines based on short stories from That Christmas and Other Stories by Curtis and illustrator Rebecca Cobb. The voice cast features Brian Cox, Fiona Shaw, Jodie Whittaker and Bill Nighy.
That Christmas premiered at the BFI London Film Festival on 19 October 2024, and was released on 4 December 2024. It received mixed reviews from critics.
In the seaside Suffolk town of Wellington-on-Sea, the townsfolk are preparing to celebrate Christmas, with the activities being organised by Bill, the lighthouse keeper. The story follows three groups: Danny Williams, a shy new boy in town who tries to adjust to his parents' divorce, Sam and Charlie Beccles, identical twin sisters who are respectively anxious and mischievous, and Bernadette McNutt, a spirited local rebel who wants to change things up for the holiday. At the school’s Christmas play, Bernadette puts on a more liberal spin, which not many of the parents enjoy, with Danny almost missing his cue due to staring at Sam and Charlie arriving last minute. Danny is upset but not surprised that his mother has to leave for work, and at home, he converses with her through sticky notes about the play and his crush on Sam.
The next morning, the school is closed due to an weather-related cancellation, but Mrs. Williams fails to notice the alert, and Danny is caught trying to leave by his teacher, Mrs. Trapper, who has him catch up on his studies due to his poor marks. During a ten-minute recess, Mrs. Trapper teaches Danny how to properly build a snowman and Danny notices that Mrs. Trapper is miserable on the way home after spending the rest of the day playing in the snow with her. Sam watches Charlie put out a prank on their neighbor who is mean to her dog, and Charlie gets scolded by their mother. On Christmas Eve, Bernadette stays with her younger sister Evie, Nisha Mulji, and Teddy and Scarlett Forrest in a barn near their houses and prepare their annual Christmas traditions while their parents attend a wedding out of town. The Beccles are forced to retrieve turkeys from Farmer Yirrell who kills them before selling them as the butcher could not get a shipment in due to an blizzard. At the farm, Charlie sneaks away to try and free the turkeys, but Sam chastises her for her actions. Meanwhile, Mrs. Williams advises Danny to drop by the Beccles’ store to acquire wine gums for his father. After Danny notices the shop's closure, Sam invites him in to warm himself up for a minute, but Danny declines, so he meet his father at home. When the parents leave the reception, they are forced to take the long way home thanks to a snowstorm, but they go off the road and slide down a slope from off a bridge. They inform their children that they will be home in the morning and have them stay together for the night. Upon arriving home, Danny is called by his father who informs him he is unable to come due to the blizzard.
As Danny sleeps with his mother, who comforts him, Santa arrives at Wellington with Dasher and, upon learning about the situations in Danny's life, leaves him behind with his stocking full and a quad bike in front of his house. After learning of the kids' current events, Santa leaves them with their peculiar gifts. Noting that Sam has been nice while Charlie has been naughty, Santa reluctantly leaves Charlie with the presents. Charlie awakes and is overjoyed to find presents but sadly sees Sam's empty stocking and realises they are meant for her sister. When Charlie moves everything to Sam’s stocking, Santa gets a reading that Charlie in fact nice and returns to Wellington. On Christmas Day, Charlie wakes up to hear Sam's cries of joy and congratulates her. Sam points towards Charlie's stocking to find it full, and Charlie finds a button saying "officially nice" inside but decides to keep it away from her family. Later, while Charlie is untidying her side of the room, Sam finds Charlie's notes and realises she did all those things to help Sam, even developing a plan to get her and Danny together. Upon waking up, the kids discover their gifts, and Bernadette leads them in having the Christmas they want, while Evie follows a flock of turkeys during a game of hide and seek. An overjoyed Danny becomes disheartened when he learns that his mother has to work as Lighthouse Bill's mother is sick. Mrs. Williams leaves after a small fight, and Danny, seeing Mrs. Trapper alone, offers to have lunch with her, but she declines and convinces him to see things from his mother's perspective. Meanwhile, the parents struggle to get up from the slope, so they call Mrs. Trapper, who enlists Danny's help to convince Farmer Yirrell to get the parents to safety simply by hulling them back to their houses where they are ultimately greeted by their children and helps Danny make an igloo for his mother. Danny and his mother reconcile and offer Mrs. Trapper a place at their table, but she declines and looks through a box of mementos belonging to Jamie, her late husband.
The parents notice that Evie's missing and they search for her, getting the town involved in their search. Mrs. Trapper enlists Danny to take her to the McNutt house where she takes up the command. As Sam and Charlie run into Danny and join in on his quad bike, the trio enlists Lighthouse Bill to help find Evie. Fortunately, Lighthouse Bill flashes the light on a set of footprints and the group follow them to a row of beach huts where they find Evie sheltering with several turkeys. After Bernadette and Evie's parents arrive, Bernadette apologizes to her mother for losing Evie as she forgives her. Upon learning that Danny thought of using the lighthouse, Bernadette hails him a hero and Danny asks out Sam. On Boxing Day, Lighthouse Bill goes to the beach to swim in the cold ocean with half the town arriving to enjoy themselves.
In November 2019, it was announced that Locksmith Animation was developing The Empty Stocking, an animated feature film based on the children's Christmas book trilogy That Christmas and Other Stories written by Richard Curtis and illustrated by Rebecca Cobb. On 14 June 2021, Locksmith announced that Simon Otto would be directing the film, in his directorial debut, which had been retitled That Christmas. In May 2022, Locksmith confirmed that it awarded the digital production of the film to DNEG Animation, following their collaboration on Locksmith's first animated feature film Ron's Gone Wrong (2021). Also in May 2022, Nicole P. Hearon and Adam Tandy were announced as producers for the film with Curtis, Cobb, Bonnie Arnold, Lara Breay, Javier Hernáez, Mary Coleman, Natalie Fischer, Colin Hopkins, Julie Lockhart, Elisabeth Murdoch and Sarah Smith as executive producers. In November 2023, it was announced that John Powell would compose the film's musical score. On 20 March 2024, Brian Cox, Fiona Shaw, Jodie Whittaker and Bill Nighy were announced to star in the film. In August 2024, it was announced that English singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran would write and contribute a song for the film, titled "Under the Tree".
That Christmas (Soundtrack from the Netflix Film) is the film's soundtrack album, containing John Powell's musical score with some additional music composed by Batu Sener, Anthony Willis, Ed Sheeran, Johnny McDaid and Markus Siegel. The soundtrack was mixed at 5 Cat Studios in Los Angeles, California, recorded at Abbey Road Studios in London, England and was digitally released on Netflix Music on December 4, 2024. Sheeran and McDaid's song "Under the Tree", which is featured in the film and not featured on its soundtrack, was released as a non-album digital single on 26 November 2024 by Gingerbread Man Records.
That Christmas also features other songs that are also not featured on its soundtrack, including "Boom Shack-A-Lak" by Apache Indian, "Underneath the Tree" by Kelly Clarkson, "Snowflakes" by Emmy the Great and Tim Wheeler and "Christmas Lights" by Coldplay as well as renditions of The Spice Girls' "Wannabe", Stevie Wonder's "Happy Birthday", Dua Lipa's "Levitating", Madonna's "Papa Don't Preach", J. Fred Coots and Haven Gillespie's "Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town", Franz Xaver Gruber's "Silent Night" and Giacomo Puccini's "Nessun dorma". "Thin Ice", a 2014 instrumental song by New Zealand composer and producer Rhian Sheehan, was originally going to be featured in the film as well.
In June 2022, it was announced that Netflix would handle worldwide distribution rights for the film under the Netflix Animation label after originally announcing a new deal with Warner Bros. Pictures and Warner Animation Group in October 2019. That Christmas premiered at the 68th BFI London Film Festival on 19 October 2024 and was released on Netflix on 4 December 2024.
That Christmas received mixed reviews from critics. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 67% of 43 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 5.9/10. The website's consensus reads: "More of a stocking stuffer than a proper gift from Santa, That Christmas is an amiable enough addition to the holiday canon." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 60 out of 100, based on 13 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews.
Tim Cogshell of FilmWeek wrote: "I don't particularly care for the doll-like animation, but there's a couple notions in this movie that I like: one, that not everybody likes Christmas, and two, that "naughty" is subjective." Helen O'Hara of Empire gave the film three out of five stars and wrote: "The stories are all individually charming, but overly familiar animation and underwhelming character-design blunt the effect." Jacob Oller of The A.V. Club gave the film a grade "D", calling it "schmaltz-heavy and wishlist-thin" and saying that "That Christmas offers very little and doesn't even have the self-awareness to include the receipt." Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian gave the film two out of five stars and said "It's all more or less sufferable, and it may well keep young children quiet at Christmas... but we surely needed a higher joke content."
Ed Potton of The Times gave the film two out of five stars and said "That Christmas is like a neutered Motherland, or Pixar but lobotomised and dressed by Boden." Robbie Collin of The Daily Telegraph gave the film three out of five stars and wrote: "... The writing's sentimental and/or smirky longueurs are remedied by the animation itself, whose cosy charm has a distinctly British sensibility – from the architecture to the landscape and even the colour palettes, everything is satisfyingly just right." Wendy Ide of Screen International wrote: "The film looks terrific... And while the story itself might not hold any surprises, it's big-hearted and generous with its happy endings." Peter Debruge of Variety wrote: "Adapted from a trio of picture books by "Love Actually" scribe Richard Curtis, the feel-good family film is chock-full of kids second-guessing their worth — and not just in the naughty-or-nice department either." Lovia Gyarkye of The Hollywood Reporter wrote: "For all its narrative preoccupations, That Christmas rarely feels like it's shortchanging any set of characters or their arcs." Kate Erbland of IndieWire gave the film a grade "B+" and wrote: "The old chestnuts hold true for this one, the goofy holiday puns: it's a gift well worth unwrapping and sharing with the ones you love most." William Bibbiani of TheWrap called That Christmas "an ordinary feature that could have been extraordinary as a series of three shorts."