The Santa Box (2020)

I can only speak for myself, naturally, but... this is a very good Xmas flick! <em>This review may contain spoilers.</em> <em>'The Santa Box'</em> surprised me, a lot. I knew nothing of it before watching and only selected it as* it looks like one of those standard cheesy festive flicks - which my mum, who I watched these Xmas films with, can't get enough of. And the opening few scenes, granted aside from the cold open, only seemed to confirm that it was indeed one of those. <em>*I also, amusingly, thought that was John Malkovich on the cover, which I had only seen an icon-sized version of. Just me? Probably. Anyway, unfortunately, 'twas not him.</em> However, by the end, I was almost shocked at how pleasant it was to watch. Like, don't get me wrong, it most definitely still has cheesy moments, but it has a more emotive side to it than I was expecting - it genuinely hit me in the feels a fair few times. If they followed through with the ending, I'd have been fully hooked in. I completedly get why they didn't go that way though, it made sense for the story to go the way it does. It is a slightly odd film in that it does feel rough around the edges almost across the board, like the camera work has an amateur side to it as does the acting, the dialogue, the music (which is still nice) and whatever else. And yet it all comes together very well, impressively so. I enjoyed the whole cast. Cami Carver gives, in my opinion, an excellent performance for a relatively young actress. She has good daughter/mother chemistry with Tatum Langton. Shawn Stevens is also ace, even if I barely recognise him out of character online. There's only been a low amount of ratings so far, so too small a sample size, but it seems to split opinion across various websites. As noted at the top, it's opinion-based, but I'm closer to the latter than the former. I was inches, and I mean inches, away from giving this 4*. I think it narrowly falls short, as mentioned if they actually 'did' the ending I'd be giving it that rating, fwiw. Not that it ends badly, at all. A very swell film, one I'd be more than happy to revisit. Would you like it? Who knows, but I would recommend it.