Silent Night

I don't know how its been given a Horror and a Comedy status.

It's dark, sad, and not in the least funny or scary.

Don't watch on Christmas day as it may upset you.

Actually not bad! I guess another victim of bad marketing because I think people went to see it with the absolutely wrong expectations. Its not your typical Christmas flick but rather a very, very dark comedy with many truly dramatic aspects.

And its funny how up to date it is in a certain way. Truly surprising that this was written and directed pre covid because in many ways it mirrors our current society.

The characters are 95% really unlikeable, especially at the beginning. Yes the beginning is weird, but it kind of makes sense. And dont read too much about it in advance, that will help.

Keira Knightley was good but she has been better. I really liked Matthew Goode here, he was not as stiff as usually. Lucy Punch was great as well.

But the most outstanding performance comes once again from "JoJo Rabbit"s Roman Griffin Davis. He was SO good. Quirky and bad mouthed but also very dramatic in a convincing way. Wouldn't be surprised if he makes my line up once again.

Good soundtrack, very good writing and a decent direction round this up to a pleasant surprise that really deserves a way better reception than it got.

The last twenty minutes and the end are excellent but sadly to get to that point you have to endure pretty much endless boredom. The acting is ok but the characters are so unlikeable you barely care what happens to them by the time you get to the good bit. The kids are all awful people and the constant swearing is quite repulsive - it may have been a plot point but if it was it was far too heavy handed. It would have worked as a twenty minute episode of an anthology tv show but did not have enough substance to carry it for ninety minutes and the padding that was the building of the characters and their back stories just made it tiresome to watch. It's a shame - handled differently it could have been quite good.

Never has a film been so heartwarming, heartbreaking and horrifying. SILENT NIGHT is humanity at its very best in the face of its worst fears with laughter, tears and a poignant reminder of why life is worth living at all before we meet our inevidable ends.

I'm not really sure this film knows what it wants to be. If you want to watch a good film about adults and children facing the end check out 'These Final Hours'. If you want to watch a black comedy about the end of the world try Dr Strangelove. There is a lot of talent on screen but much of the script is nonsense and the characters are both sympathetic and unlikeable - but not in a good way. Roman Griffin Davis was pretty good, but the script was obviously distorted to feature everything he says and does. Nothing felt natural and most of the character's motivations remain a mystery. By the end you don't care how it ends.