A Christmas No. 1 Review

One of my bugbears when it comes to Christmas movies is not the movies themselves, but the reviews that they get from professional and non-professional reviewers alike. It seems quite acceptable to sneer at them and point out their faults, real and imagined, as a way to denigrate not just the movie itself, but the whole genre. The same thing happens with Christmas music, where people tend to demonstrate their ‘superior’ taste by parading their dislike of ‘Christmas songs’ as if they are all of equally low musical merit. This isn’t to say I give anything with a Christmas theme a free pass, far from it. However, I am open to the possibility that it will be very good.

In that sense, given that it is a film about Christmas that revolves around Christmas music, it was probably predictable that the new Sky Movies production, A Christmas No. 1, was not going to get many good reviews, but I hope that after you have read my review you will give it a chance. You may not like it, but hopefully that will not be purely down to the fact that it is a Christmas film. 

The Plot

Iwan Rheon plays Blake Cutter, the bassist in a thrash metal band called Scurve. He is also a songwriter whose work is not entirely appreciated by his bandmates. Although he enjoys playing, he and the band seem to be pulling in different directions with the drummer as a kind of uneasy peacemaker – very Abbey Road in a film packed with ‘guess the band/singer’ moments! His niece Nina, played by the amazing Helena Zengel, is a vlogger whose two passions are Christmas and her favourite boyband 5 Together! She is in hospital receiving treatment for cancer and Blake visits her whenever he can. They have a kind of brother/sister relationship full of knockabout humour and often Nina seems to be the more focused and sensible of the two. She asks him to write a song for her. He initially gives her a grindcore howl of anger that does not hit the right note. She tells Blake that she wants a Christmas song, a genre that Blake is extremely cynical about. Nevertheless, he puts his mind to the task and comes up with a song that she films for her vlog. Enter Meghna Rai, played by Freida Pinto who has been ordered, by her ogre of a boss Grainger Cocksmith (played with, perhaps, cathartic zeal by an unrecognisable Alfie Boe) to find a surefire Christmas Number 1 for failing boyband 5 Together. She sees the video, hears the sound of that Christmas Number 1 and decides to ensure that she gets hold of the track by underhand means. Blake is horrified and makes her promise that all the profits will go to cancer charities and that he will be the producer. As the track nears completion the two grow closer, much to Nina’s delight, until the record company reneges on its promise to donate all profits to charity. Can anything be rescued from the situation with Blake seemingly unable to trust her again?

The Cast

Iwan Rheon uses his singing and acting background to excellent effect as Blake Cutter. He is every inch the frustrated pop star looking at a career that never seemed to deliver what it promised. When he is singing or playing you just know that he is having a blast and he has a really good voice on songs ranging from the plaintively gorgeous Christmas Morning to the existential scream of Godkiller written for his band Scurve as a reaction to Nina’s condition. What the two songs have in common is an outpouring of love and fear as he faces the illness that scares him more than it seems to scare Nina. Rheon absolutely inhabits both songs, and a rendition of Christmas Morning near the end of the film is just a beautiful, emotional piece of vocal work. As a romantic lead he is pleasingly off kilter and cynical, but he shows Blake’s tenderness very well indeed and works very well in his pairing with Freida Pinto. His connection with Helena Zengler’s Nina is almost telepathic and the way he combines love, anger, fear and a determination to do everything he can for her, gives the film its emotional core.

Freida Pinto as Meghna Rai has a much less sympathetic character to play. She is cynical, opportunistic, selfish and career focused at the expense of everything and everyone else. She will do anything to get what she wants, including exploiting a sick child, something that Blake calls her out on. We learn that she had a bad experience with a former lover who she used to manage and who she broke up with after finding out that he was sleeping with her best friend. To make matters worse, she became the subject of his next album in its entirety! Although she has been successful, she knows that her job is completely dependent on ensuring that 5 Together remain a success. For all the reasons above, she is determined not to get into any kind of relationship with Blake.

The thread that holds the whole film together is 13 year old Nina Cutter. It is a simply amazing performance by young German actress Helena Zengler. She is the emotional core of the film, with her condition a central preoccupation of the people around her. We know that things are quite bleak, but we hardly ever feel sorry for her because she never feels sorry for herself. Nina is opinionated, passionate and determined to fill the unforgiving minute with 60 seconds worth of distance run. She catches the eye of one of her fellow patients, Harold, played sensitively by Marcos Byrne, who has more in common with Blake musically, but finds his efforts derivative!    

She knows everything there is to know about the theory of writing a great Christmas single and she is only wrong on one thing in my view – the highpoint of the Christmas single was in the 80s not the 70s! 

Alfie Boe, who I didn’t recognise even after seeing his name on the end credits, makes Grainger Cocksmith a completely reprehensible, irredeemable human being! He provides a number of comic moments that perhaps have certain impresarios looking uncomfortably away from the screen. I would just love to know which moguls form the basis for the character, but I would guess it’s a composite of personality traits and incidents from the music industry. Either way, it is clear that he, and the writers, are having a whale of a time skewering certain people who have annoyed them in the past!

Finally I really must give a shout out to the various singers and musicians who fill out the roles in the two main groups so well. Henry Perryment does a great job as Ryan, lead singer of Scurve. He comes across as egotistical, as all frontmen need to be, but when Blake calls on him for help he is right there. It’s a pitch perfect performance in both senses of the word, as Scurve’s version of Christmas Morning shows off his excellent singing. Georgia Small, as lead guitarist Kandy Caine gives a really good performance as the apparently unbothered musician whose insouciance keeps people at arms length, but who gives Blake the support he needs. Finally, peacemaker and drummer Mark played with perhaps a nod to Derek Smalls by Claude Pelletier is a lovely character and clearly holds the band together in the face of the egos around him.

Boyband 5 Together genuinely seem like a real boyband from the first scene – or at least the popular perception of a boyband. Their vacuous but well produced pop borrows its songs and image from Take That, East 17 and Blue, but thanks to the five actors their pretensions and rivalries ring true throughout.  

The music

Any film based on the music industry lives or dies on its soundtrack and this soundtrack is fantastic. Songs written by Guy Chambers are always pretty much on the money, but especially so here. Spanning a huge range of genres, every song is equally effective as a pastiche and as a genuine song. In that sense, it is the best pop movie soundtrack since Music and Lyrics. Iwan Rheon shows his musical chops by having co-writing credits on the gorgeous Christmas Morning which appears on the soundtrack in three versions. It really is an incredibly affecting song, most of all in the version sung by Rheon himself. The boyband songs are of course spot on, and I have a shrewd suspicion that Chambers may have taken some of his knowledge of Robbie Williams’ time in Take That to inspire the music! It’s definitely a soundtrack that will be gracing future Christmases in our house.

Overall

As with any Christmas movie, you have to suspend disbelief and accept that all the elements have an internal logic to them. Director Chris Cottam handles three separate strands with skill to ensure that the film succeeds as a coherent whole. The way he frames Nina through her vlog gives her a unique voice and makes her effectively the narrator of the film. At no point did I feel that the different strands collided with each other and that helped enormously. If you like Christmas films you should enjoy this. If you like music industry satire you should enjoy this. If you like rom coms you should enjoy this, although in many ways this particular aspect is a minor subtext rather than a major strand. Sit down, relax and let this warm seasonal film slip down like the best hot chocolate.