“Christmas is a con!” says the subcontinental Scrooge, Mr Sood, in Gurinder Chadha’s CHRISTMAS KARMA, a bowdlerised Bollywood-inspired reimagining of Charles Dickens’ classic A Christmas Carol.
Couldn’t agree more and this picture is part of the problem.
Swimming against a stream of dialogue and songs with the consistency of clag, rather like striding through a swamp of saccharine and syrup, this misguided musical is bound to raise a chorus of Bah Humbug.
Set against the backdrop of modern-day London, with its cost of living crisis, CHRISTMAS KARMA features a sugary soundtrack from Gary Barlow, Nitin Sawhney, and Shaznay Lewis, blending gospel, bhangra, rap, pop, and classic Christmas carols. It’s a bland blend that jars and congeals rather than coalesces, dissonance rather than harmony, cacophony rather than symphony.
Physically, the acting is wooden and the choreography creaky, a poor realisation of Dickens’ pastoral, with characters that are jovial and homely despite their bleak destiny of artless servility. Ho , ho, woe.
Wit, audacity and vocal finesse are deplorably lacking even with the participation of that Karma Chameleon, Boy George.
CHRISTMAS KARMA is a Christmas turkey with none of the trimmings.
One yearns for a tincture of Grinch or better yet, a blast of Bad Santa.
