Stream It Or Skip It

Stream It Or Skip It: ‘A Not So Merry Christmas’ on Netflix, a Mexican Comedy That Sticks a Jerk in a Holiday Hell Time Loop

By John Serba
Published Dec. 20, 2022, 3:30 p.m. ET

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A Not So Merry Christmas

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The Most Generic Christmas-Movie Title of 2022 distinction goes to A Not So Merry Christmas (now on Netflix), a high-concept comedy from Mexican director Mark Alazraki. It’s about a Scrinchy Grooge-ish type guy who isn’t sufficiently joyous during the holiday season, and therefore must face an ironic punishment: Re-living the day he hates over and over again until he either goes nuts and bananas, or figures this shit out. Which will it be, and will we feel suitably invested in his predicament? Let’s investigate.

A NOT SO MERRY CHRISTMAS: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Chuy’s (Mauricio Ochmann) birthday is on Christmas Eve, and it ruined him. He’s a me-first crank who doesn’t appreciate his family or his sports-memorabilia store, which is apparently so lucrative, he can afford a gorgeous, sprawling home with a kitchen you could stage a small theatrical production in, and that can accommodate his parents and all of his siblings and his wacky aunt and uncle for Christmas Eve dinner. (I notice these things.) His thoughtful wife Daniela (Ana Brenda Contreras) and two young kids wake him with a birthday cake and lots of love and he’s OK with that but he rushes off to the mall to grab some cash from the memorabilia shop register and push away his nice-guy employee when he tries to give him a birthday hug. That night everyone comes over and he calls his family members “mooches” and “parasites” who are always looking for “handouts.” And I think this is because sometimes his birthday and Christmas blur together and he only gets one present. Someone please find the nearest dark, abyssal crevasse and toss him into it.

Angry and frustrated, he walks out of Xmas Eve dinner and heads out for a stiff drink. His bartender (Manu Nna), whose waxed handlebar mustache is a Daliesque absurdity, pours him a double tequila shot that twinkles and sparkles with crappy CGI. I pause here to dispense a bit of practical advice: Never, ever drink a drink that twinkles and sparkles with crappy CGI. You’re in for a whole heaping mess of trouble if you do. But if anyone deserves a whole heaping mess of trouble, it’s Chuy. So, glug glug. Turns out, the bartender is Chuy’s “diva godmother,” assigned by the gods or destiny or Santa or the universe or whatever to teach the guy a lesson about not being a selfish dickhead all the time.

So what fresh hell does Chuy have to navigate? He wakes up the next day and it’s not the next day at all – a year has passed and it’s the next Christmas Eve. One of the things he has to do is not have such “a long face” about Christmas, for if one is to exist on this planet, one must submit to the unholy oppressive cheerfulness of the ubiquitous holiday. Chuy does what he can to not be a cretin but it’s not enough, and the next day, he wakes up and it’s the next year’s Christmas Eve, and thus proceeds ye olde time loop. He tracks down his diva godmother, who’s no longer a bartender, but a drag queen, and then the next Christmas Eve he’s a priest, and the one after that, a Buddhist, and the one after that, a Hasidic Jew. Looks like Chuy’s gonna have to Groundhog Day his way out of this one.

A NOT SO MERRY CHRISTMAS NETFLIX
Photo: Jimena Zavala/ Netflix

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Same basic concept as Groundhog Day, with a detail or two tweaked. Similar basic magical and/or ironical Christmas supernaturalism we’ve seen in It’s a Wonderful Life and the many A Christmas Carols. And Hulu just released a (much lower-budget) Groundhog Day ripoff, Christmas on Repeat, just last month.

Performance Worth Watching: The characters here are boilerplate-cardboard types – and I know that implies that characters are made of metal and paper, but just go with it here, thank you – so this is rough sledding. But as the diva godmother, Nna drums up a little vibrant color while dressing in a variety of goofy costumes.

Memorable Dialogue: A flummoxed Chuy wants to get this shit over with:

Chuy: Tell me what I have to do. I’ll do it.

Diva godmother: Have you never seen a Christmas movie?

Sex and Skin: None.

Our Take: Not only is A Not So Merry Christmas 99 percent derivative, it’s conceptually sloppy and overcomplicated. Chuy continues on his arc, acting cheery, wearing ugly Christmas sweaters, being nicer to his slacker brother, donating food from [NAME OF PROMINENT HAMBURGER CHAIN RESTAURANT REDACTED] to orphans, etc. He expects it to work faster, so it’s a lesson in patience, and he learns to be less materialistic, etc. etc. But oddly, the narrative mechanics are geared to make him suffer despite his attempts to be a better person, as his business fails and his family starts to fall apart, etc. etc. etc.

There’s a lot of etc. in this movie, a testament to its derivative nature. But being unoriginal isn’t a death knell – it’s the screenplay’s inability to inspire our dramatic investment, or churn up a decent laugh. Nna shows up here and there to enliven the proceedings, but isn’t given anything funny to say, and as a protagonist, the Chuy character is a bland and empty cypher for generic sentiment. You’ll spend too much time poking holes in the flimsy concept and noticing how the other characters conveniently explain what’s happened in the past year every time Chuy wakes up, and not enough time giving a damn.

Our Call: This is a not so good review! SKIP IT.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com.