Silent Night (2021).
Directed by Camille Griffin
Written by Camille Griffin
Starring Kiera Knightley, Roman Griffin Davis, Matthew Goode, Sope Dirisu, and Lily Rose-Depp
The Review.
I normally have a variation of the IMDB plot summary at the top of the review, but this time, I’m going to eshew that because I went in blind to this film and I think it’s worth being surprised. See, all I knew about this movie going in was that it went off the rails at some point, and boy does it.
The opening of the film sees a family and some of their close friends descending on a beautiful country home for Christmas dinner. Nell is making potatoes, her husband, Simon, trying to wrangle the chickens in the yard. Their twins are playing video games and their oldest son, Art, is doing what he can to help. Nell’s sister Sandra arrives along with her boring husband Tony and their daughter Kitty, who no one seems to like. Their sister Bella arrives with her wife, and then finally, their family friend James and his girlfriend, Sophie. As the group converses, we can see that there are cracks in each of these relationships - secrets untold, grudges held. There’s just something…off about the situation. Finally, they sit down for Christmas dinner, and through some off-the-cuff comments, we learn about what’s really going on and a lot of what happened and what was said in the first twenty minutes starts to make a lot more sense.
The rest of the film is a darkly comedic film - like pitch black comedy - with some moments of genuine terror and emotion all wrapped up in a big, fat, political socio-economic commentary with a nice little satirical bow on top. There are some moments that really made me laugh out loud - most delivered by Art, played by Jojo Rabbit’s Roman Griffin Davis. He’s fantastic as the inquisitive kid who seems more mature than most of the adults in the house, but there isn’t a weak link in the cast. Kiera Knightley, Matthew Goode, Sope Dirisu, Lucy Punch, and Lily Rose-Depp all put forth brilliant, layered performances. A late film scene of frustration that Matthew Goode’s Simon portrays will be relatable to all parents just trying to make their kids happy.
The End.
It’s really tough to end a movie like this and although I don’t love the final shot, it’s also obvious that we don’t know what happens after that. In interviews with writer/director Camille Griffin, she’s said that what’s on screen wasn’t her original ending, and that vibes. Sometimes directors need to compromise their vision a bit to get their stuff on-screen. I hope that on the eventual Blu-ray release, we’ll see those scenes. Overall, I don’t think that it ruins the film. There are also a lot of ways to read the theme of the film, but I’m not going to get into that in this review because if I discuss the politics and allegories within, it’ll ruin the crux of the film for those going in blind.
I really enjoyed Silent Night. It’s a Christmas movie unlike anything I’ve seen before. It made me laugh, it made me tear up, and it gave me legitimate anxiety…not because of what I was seeing on-screen per se (although one scene involving a car really did make me want to look away), but because it begs the question - much like in films like Gone Baby Gone - what would you do? After I saw the film, I went and talked to my wife about it (because she sure as hell wasn’t going to watch this with me)…and there’s no easy answer.
