Boxing Day is a rom-com by Aml Ameen, in which Hollywood-based novelist Melvin returns to his British Caribbean family in London for Christmas with his American fiancée Lisa.
But in London is his ex-girlfriend, international popstar Georgia (Leigh-Anne Pinnock from Little Mix), who he dumped by just leaving for America. In the meantime, Lisa can’t bring herself to tell Melvin that she has been offered a job in New Zealand – and that she’s pregnant.
Aml Ameen had his directing debut with Boxing Day. It has its flaws. The charismatic cast cannot hide the fact that a real plot is missing, and the characters have almost no characterisation, which does not make it easy on the actors.
The love triangle between Melvin, Lisa and Georgia is not strong enough to be the main focus of the movie. It is clear that Melvin is not interested in Georgia anymore. The plot is more about the main characters not talking properly to each other than anything else. It is too predictable and has no real drama.
The voiceover at the beginning of the movie is more ‘telling’ than ‘showing’ and does not stick to the rest of the movie. There’s a lot going on, maybe even too much. That the cast is almost entirely black British is a pleasure, which means it focuses on Christmas celebrations in a Black British household.
I would not call this movie a rom-com. Yes some parts are laughable but just because of how cringe they are. The tone of the movie feels jagged, and the unoriginal jokes are just awful. And the romance is missing a lot. They could have made so much more of the fact that they are in London during Christmas.
They tried too hard when recreating scenes from different Christmas movies, for example, when they tried to copy the famous Love Actually scene in which Andrew Lincoln holds up the placards to tell Keira Knightley how he feels. The recreation of this scene was just unnecessary because it did not work and he was still alone in the end.
For the whole of the 1 hour and 49 minutes of the movie, the film played it safe. In my eyes, the movie got overhyped on social media, especially in the Little Mix fandom. I only went because I wanted to see Leigh-Anne Pinnock acting her movie debut. She did a great job, and her singing was beautiful but that was not enough for me. I almost fell asleep. I did not get hooked by the storyline and if someone asked me if they should watch the movie, I would say just wait until it is available to stream online on Netflix or Prime Video.