Not Your Average Christmas Movie
Is Die Hard a Christmas movie? Are any of these Christmas movies?
One of the best and, albeit, most annoying debates this time of year is if Die Hard is a Christmas movie. The answer is, no, but we will delve into that more deeply on another episode maybe. For this episode we are recommending some not-so-obvious Christmas movies. Movies that are set around the Christmas season, but not necessarily a Christmas movie. These are perfect movies to start off the holiday season to transition into the full chaos.
This week we are sans Drew and joined by the wonderful Katie Carter! A 5ish time contributor to the newsletter and joined Billy for a podcast on Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation earlier this year for our Missed Connections series. Find her on her website Katie at the Movies or go see her in person for her weekly Holiday Series at Hi-Pointe Theatre (this week she is showing Holiday Affair)!
Katie recommends…
The Silent Partner
What exactly constitutes a Christmas movie is a hot debate that surfaces annually, as reliable as crowded department stores and Michael Bublé blaring ad nauseam. For some, a story needs to utilize the spirit of the season in a meaningful way to be considered a Christmas movie. For others, a film merely being set over the holidays is enough. And sometimes, a story that otherwise doesn’t have any association with the holiday is enhanced by that setting. Such is the case with The Silent Partner, a 1978 Canadian thriller from director Daryl Duke.
Elliott Gould stars in the film as Miles Cullen, a mild-mannered bank teller in a Toronto shopping mall. Every aspect of The Silent Partner’s opening scenes points to Miles being, frankly, a loser: he spends his time outside work collecting fish for his home aquarium, and fumbles all attempts to get with his office crush Julie (Susannah York), even when his manager/her lover orders him to take her out for him. So when he gets wind of a potential robbery about to go down at the bank, he decides to take some action for once, and hatches a plan to shortchange his till. And it works: when the mall’s Santa Claus shows up and robs him at gunpoint, Miles slips a cool $48k into his Superman lunch box. The problem is, that Santa Claus later catches a news bulletin reporting the true amount stolen from the bank and puts two and two together. And that Santa Claus is no petty crook, but Arthur Reikle (Christopher Plummer), a sadistic killer who quickly engages Miles in an increasingly deadly game of cat and mouse.
The Silent Partner was one of the first films made under the Capital Cost Allowance plan, through which the Canadian government provided tax inducements to production companies to film their movies in Canada, but this is no mere low-budget genre picture. The Silent Partner moves between precise, intelligent twists (Roger Ebert, at the time of its release, even referred to the film as “worthy of Hitchcock”) and gnarly bursts of violence that verge on exploitation with ease. The bulk of the credit for that belongs to screenwriter Curtis Hanson, who would later move into the director’s chair and helm such noir-adjacent projects as The Bedroom Window and L.A. Confidential (another solid alternative Christmas movie candidate). Plummer reaches chilling heights I never believed he was capable of before seeing this, and Gould is at his awkward everyman best. They are backed up by a great supporting cast; York and Celine Lomez unfortunately don’t serve as much more than tokens as the two female leads, but they are still striking, and a very young John Candy in one of his first film roles is a lot of fun as Miles’ horny coworker.
There’s a lot more that can be examined in The Silent Partner, from the homoerotic undertones in Arthur’s pursuit of Miles to its exploration of masculinity (his criminal act emboldens the previously-meek Miles almost immediately), but the film perhaps most notably makes great use of its holiday setting, which dominates the first half of the movie. Seeing such typically cheerful scenes employed in such a sinister manner— Plummer’s flinty gaze peering out from over his false Santa beard, a choir singing carols in the festively-decorated shopping center that soon becomes the scene of a crime— serves to make the film’s already moody atmosphere that much more tense and frightening. The Silent Partner may not be what you’d typically consider a Christmas movie, but the holidays are such an integral part of it that it absolutely is one. And if you aren’t feeling in the jolliest of spirits, it’s a wicked seasonal alternative that’s well worth seeking out.
Billy recommends…
Eyes Wide Shut
There is a whole hubbub about Stanley Kubrick’s movie Barry Lyndon being lit almost entirely by candlelight, but Eyes Wide Shut does not get the same love for doing a very similar thing with Christmas lights. An aesthetic that adds to the dream-like vibe running throughout this highly erotic runtime. The Christmas aspect is something that feels more important each time you watch this movie. And Kubrick takes on a Santa-like mystique at this point with his final film. A production that would ruin most directors or actors, but each figure at the center of this film have thrived post Eyes Wide Shut. Is that because of the Christmas spirit or the Kubrick spirit?
Tom Cruise (Dr. William “Bill” Harford) and Nicole Kidman (Alice) were a real life couple at the time of the filming. Kubrick died 6 days after he finished his final cut of the movie. And at the time, was the longest continuous shoot ever recorded for a narrative feature. A chaotic production that had to have had an amplified version of madness due to being stuck on a set that looks like a manufactured snow-globe version of New York City. Katie so brilliantly stated above, “a story needs to utilize the spirit of the season in a meaningful way to be considered a Christmas movie. For others, a film merely being set over the holidays is enough.” May I make the argument that Eyes Wide Shut has both?
In a perverted sense this movie starts with an unwrapped present that we can all relate to. Not in the “revealing a sexual fantasy” type of present that Alice throws upon Bill, but the feeling of receiving a present that makes you second guess something about the person that gave it to you. My version is from about age 15-19 an aunt would constantly buy me XXL to XXXL sized clothing even though I varied from 165-175lbs during that time of my life. Christmas gifts that would send me into a numb trance until it was my turn to open my next gift. In this movie, Bill meanders across New York City to get back at his wife for her fantasy of sleeping with a naval-man.
What was once clear reality is now filtered with an astigmatism type lens for Bill. Flaring Christmas lights, an uncertain reality, and a lost sense of self. Eyes Wide Shut has taken over Die Hard in many ways for my off-the-beaten-path Christmas watch. Again, is this the Kubrick spirit or Christmas spirit? Either way, a little melancholy is ever present this time of year for many of us, lean in why don’t you with this insane adventure.
From the DYLA Archive
An All-Christmas Edition of Do You Like Apples
Alternative Christmas Movies To Switch Up Your Holiday Season