Alternative Christmas Movies To Switch Up Your Holiday Season
These aren't recognized as Christmas movies, but maybe they should be?
In past Decembers of this newsletter, we have handed out Christmas movie awards and recommended some Christmas classics, but today we are talking about the “alternative” Christmas film. These are the movies set (at least partially) around the Christmas season that aren’t recognized as part of the genre. The old example of this used to be Die Hard until enough people kept saying, you know Die Hard is a Christmas movie, right??
So, if you’re tired of watching the same old five or six classics every year, here’s a few unconventional Christmas picks to go outside the box this holiday season.
Drew recommends…
The Apartment
Everybody knows the holidays are a time of good cheer, but what if, thought legendary director Billy Wilder, they are also a time of loneliness, cheating spouses, and suicide attempts. I’m making this classic comedy-drama sound darker than it is, but The Apartment is a film set over Christmas and New Year’s that leans into the melancholy feeling this time of year can usher in.
Jack Lemmon stars as C.C. Baxter, a mid-level office worker that tries to climb the ladder by letting his bosses use his Manhattan apartment for their extramarital liaisons. Baxter has a crush on elevator operator Fran (Shirley MacLaine), who happens to be carrying on an affair with his boss in Baxter’s own apartment. It’s a brilliantly crafted and performed holiday-set film that ended up winning Best Picture in 1960.
The Apartment portrays both the revelry and gloom of the holidays. There’s a rowdy, swinging office Christmas party replete with booze, dancing, and couples making out, as well as a blow-out New Year’s celebration later in the film. In between, Wilder depicts scenes of dejection and sorrow, as Baxter and Fran come to terms with the choices they have made and who they want to be in the future. It’s a bittersweet and beautiful story of two lonely people finding each other over the holidays.
Available to rent digitally on demand
Billy recommends…
The Green Knight
A fantasy Christmas movie unlike anything we have seen. Christmas bookends this adventure gothic tale and lurks around as a result. None of the merriness or tradition is here, but a pseudo-Santa, plenty of gathering, and a Christmas game make this a perfect “alternative Christmas movie.”
The aimless Sir Gawain played brilliantly by Dev Patel is heir to the monarch, but has his mind and desires elsewhere. Mainly focused on his love for a commoner played by Alicia Vikander and doubting his fate laid before him.
On Christmas Day, The Green Knight, our gothic Santa in this story, comes and challenges the table to try and strike a blow against him. In his youthful exuberance he gladly accepts the challenge to prove his worth and seemingly succeeds. A now headless Green Knight rises and adds a caveat to this game. A year later Sir Gawain must come to The Green Knight’s lair and receive the same blow he gave him.
We all need variety during our repeating Christmas seasons and The Green Knight provides exactly that while still getting you into the winter feeling. Not the merriness we all strive to feel at this time of year, but join this story to see a journey of a character trying to find clarity for how he should act while alive. A familiar feeling at the end of year and the dawn of a new one.
Streaming on Showtime
From the DYLA Archive
Links
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