Home for Christmas

After the success of his little whimsical comedies "Kitchen Stories" and "O`Horten", director Bent Hamer now delivers an enchanting Christmas movie for the heart and laughs with "Home for Christmas".

It's Christmas in the small Norwegian village of Skogli. But not for everyone is the feast of love also a reason for joy. While a desperate father tries everything to see his children with his ex-wife on Christmas Eve, a dedicated doctor has to provide obstetric care under very special circumstances. But where a new life begins in one place, a life ends in another. And love also claims victims on this Christmas Eve, but a new, young love is also born. And even if not everyone in Skogli goes to bed happy at the end of that night, for all of them that day was a very special Christmas...

"Home for Christmas" presents, in the tradition of films like "Actually...Love", several only loosely connected stories that are sometimes laugh-out-loud funny, sometimes thought-provoking, and other times give you goosebumps and maybe even a tear or two. Admittedly, at the end the whole thing degenerates a bit into kitsch, but in keeping with the Christmas theme this isn't really disturbing here, instead providing the warmth we should all carry in our hearts at this time of year (and actually every other day too!).

The only criticism that can be levelled at Hamer's film is that it tries to tell too many different stories in just 79 minutes. The unfortunate result of this is that most of the characters remain rather flat, and the potential of each storyline is rarely fully realized. It's not that Hamer rushes through the episodes at a fast gallop. Rather, he retains the laconic calm already established in earlier films. This creates some wonderful moments that warm your heart, make you laugh heartily or even make you sob a little. But as a whole, it lacks that certain something that holds the individual good moments together.

Below the line, "Home for Christmas" is a nice, atmospheric and likeable Christmas movie, where less would have been more in terms of content. But despite the obvious weaknesses, the viewer leaves the cinema with a smile on his face - and that's exactly what a real Christmas movie should be able to do. Worth seeing - also because of the wonderful title song by Maria Mena!

An article by Frankfurt-Tipp