Timely and Engaging, Silent Night‘s Holiday at the End of the World Is Still Distractingly Inconsistent
From its opening sequence, which plays over a campy Christmas anthem called “The Christmas Sweater” (one that could only be dreamt up by Michael Bublé), Silent Night sets out to be deceiving. As our upbeat jingle merrily chimes in the background, we meet a quirky cast of characters who are all on their way to a Christmas dinner hosted by well-to-do couple Nell (Keira Knightley) and Simon (Matthew Goode). As most Christmas ensemble flicks go, each person has their own set of problems. Sophie (Lily-Rose Depp), for example, is much younger than the rest of the guests, and is worried that she won’t fit in. Sandra (Annabelle Wallis), on the other hand, is bored by her husband Tony (Rufus Jones), and is secretly pining after her childhood best friend, James (Sope Dirisu). As the cavalry approaches the house, there’s no doubt to be had that we’re in for a good ol’ Christmas romp, and that misadventures galore are bound to follow. But none of our guest’s problems are more dire than the chief problem at hand: The world is just hours away from being consumed by lethal gases caused by global warming.
To save them from suffering, the English government gives citizens “exit pills” which ensure a quick and painless death. This reveal, which comes at the end of the first act, is surprising, especially as it is announced in such a lighthearted way: Nell ends a toast by saying “May we all rest in peace.” From that point forward, the film metamorphoses into a dark comedy that flip-flops between genuine horror and dry, quirky humor.
When Silent Night is dark, it’s really dark—and it really works. Watching a small child cry at the realization that homeless people won’t have anyone to hold their hand when they die, for example, isn’t for the faint of heart, and first-time feature director Camille Griffin artfully holds back from being hysterical or overly grim, with the help of a surprisingly subtle and mature performance from Jojo Rabbit’s Roman Griffin Davis. It’s also virtually impossible to watch stoic patriarch Simon break down and admit how terrified he is of his imminent death without a sinking feeling in your stomach. And, sure, perhaps the music borders on melodramatic at times, but hey, the end of the world is no small thing.
Where Silent Night falls short, however, is that it spends far too much of the first act attempting to offset its big reveal, and from a tonal standpoint, never quite recovers. Based on the film’s beginning, it seems that Griffin imagined that the more one-liners and sparkly dresses added, the less the audience would be able to predict what happens next. And perhaps this is true, but Silent Night never truly recovers from this fake-out. Although the film gets progressively darker and darker as the end gets nearer and nearer, it would have been better if it was able to entirely let go of the droll humor and simply embrace the cynicism, or commit to the humor and spend more time developing a genuinely comical script. When Nell and Simon’s bratty twins bicker over Cokes, for example, it feels forced and unrealistic given the somber tone. The same is true for Sandra’s clichéd, high-school-popular-girl breakdowns.