Any wishes for family entertainment for the festive season? How about an animated family film with a lot of snow? And Brian Cox as Santa Claus? Plus, the voices of Fiona Shaw, Rhys Darby, Jodie Whittaker and Bill Nighy? Directed by Simon Otto, the former DreamWorks Animation creative who worked as head of character animation on the How to Train Your Dragon films? Did we mention the story is based on a trio of children’s books by Richard Curtis, who wrote the likes of Notting Hill and Four Weddings and a Funeral and wrote and directed Love Actually? Yeah, Netflix felt the same way about the pitch for That Christmas, now streaming courtesy of London-based Locksmith Animation (Ron’s Gone Wrong), with select theater screenings in the U.S. from Nov. 27 and in the U.K. from Nov. 29.
“It’s an unforgettable Christmas for the townsfolk of Wellington-on-Sea when the worst snowstorm in history alters everyone’s plans — including Santa’s,” a synopsis for the movie, a trailer for which recently debuted, reads. THR‘s review, based on the film’s premiere at the BFI London Film Festival, called it “a total delight” and concluded it was “poised to become a new holiday classic.”
One of the three interconnected stories sees a group of local children stage Three Wise Women, a progressive rendition of a play about the Three Kings. Another sees a boy have a crush on a girl, but since she’s anxious and he’s shy, their hope for love faces major challenges. The third sees two sets of parents leave town for a wedding despite the wintery weather — meaning they will have to overcome snow and other obstacles if they want to make it home in time to celebrate Christmas with their kids.
During a visit to the Locksmith Animation headquarters in North London, the passion and excitement of the creatives for the project — and their commitment over many years to make it shine — was palpable.
“It doesn’t matter where you are in the world: family and close friends getting together to celebrate something is just universal,” Locksmith Animation co-founder and head of production Julie Lockhart tells THR. “We all know the excitement of the run-up to whatever that celebration is, and then the chaos that can happen during it. So while the story is based in the U.K. and localized, the idea was to create something for the family to sit down, whatever holidays you celebrate, and watch something that you trust is going to be entertaining. That was the joy of creating it.”
The motivation to create something uplifting, fun and positive was particularly strong at a time when wars, conflicts and disputes often dominate global headlines.
“In many ways, That Christmas should stand out because the stakes aren’t extremely high,” says production designer Justin Hutchinson-Chatburn. “In most projects right now, the stakes always seem desperately high. This is a really nice story that allows everybody to just chill out.”
Otto also sees the film as comfort food for the soul. “I always think it’s best to make films for yourself as an audience member, and just make sure that you don’t exclude the kids. That way, you’re allowing everyone in all age groups to be part of it,” he explains. “I see a lot of TV shows made for adults that are based on the idea that something horrible is happening, like murder or something else quite shocking.”
The setting is a fictitious town that Curtis, co-writer and executive producer on the movie, and the Locksmith team based on the look and feel of a part of Suffolk, in the East of England, where the famous writer has a house. And setting the film in a specific part of Britain that may not yet be familiar to many viewers around the globe could have advantages, according to the creatives.
“It’s not a fantastic world, but it’s still a world that makes you dream and that you want to be in, that you want to experience,” Otto tells THR. “And maybe because it is relatable, there is an appeal to actually walk through the streets of this town.”
Actually, That Christmas is set in a “kind of attainable world,” adds Hutchinson-Chatburn. “I love getting that authenticity in there [in a lot of the design and visual decisions]. And what happens to these characters is something lovely that could happen to you. I mean, slightly exaggerated in certain places, but not so much so that you have to suspend disbelief. So, you can be in the experience, in the story that you could actually very much be part of.”
Bringing it to a global player like Netflix, which Lockhart lauds as “a great, great partner,” means that “you can reach so many people, and that is really exciting, especially for a family movie like this.”
That Christmas is also the first film that Curtis made for Netflix (even though his films have been licensed to the streamer before). “A lot of my friends have gone that route. But this is my first,” he tells THR.
It’s also his first animated project. That meant that he “did not have any idea that it was going to be taking up five years of my life,” Curtis quips. “Immediately, your mind starts spinning because it’s a very different prospect when you must be linking three stories together.”
He learned about some parts of the animation process that surprised him. “It’s a great joy. But it is very different. And there are some disadvantages to it,” he says. “The fact that you basically write, direct, edit and shoot at the same time was a new joy for me.”
The animation work allows creatives to add or tweak scenes, which Curtis found helpful to get key storyline beats right. “I seem to remember saying, ‘We’ve just ended a scene with one thing, but we need a few more shots to make it work.’ The things you can do in animation that you can’t do in live-action are really new to me.”
But he could rely on the experience and insight of the Locksmith team which he lauded for “all their collaboration right from the start.”
Otto recalls one moment where he, Curtis and the rest of the team were trying to figure out details of a key scene featuring Danny, voiced by Jack Wisniewski, a new kid in town, around whom key plot lines orbit. In that scene, Danny is walking home alone and the idea was that Santa, the narrator of the story, tells the audience that “Christmas is a bit like an emotional magnifying glass.” Otto recalls that Curtis wanted to add the line “It’s hard finding friends.” But Otto shared that he was not sure the line was helping much. “And Richard said to me: ‘This is literally the best line I’ve ever written.’”
To which Otto recalls replying: “Are you sure? Is it as good as ‘I’m just a girl, standing in front of a boy, asking him to love her?,’” a famous line Julia Roberts’ character says to Hugh Grant’s in Notting Hill. They ended up compromising on a different line: “It’s hard making friends.” Concludes Otto: “That works beautifully in the film. But it was definitely one of those moments where we had a conversation but got there.”
An eye for editing was another big focus for the Locksmith team, provided by editor Sim Evan-Jones. “In animation, there are things you can do to enhance the writing,” he tells THR. “Because we are trying to tell the story visually as well as through dialogue.”
Rooms and other animated “sets,” full of items that add character to scenes and the people who inhabit the spaces, were also key to ensuring audiences get an “authentic” feeling and experience, says Hutchinson-Chatburn. “There’s nothing worse in any movie, whether it’s live-action or animation, than if a set is not dressed, if it doesn’t feel fulfilled, and the audience feels like they got shortchanged. So we made this a big part of our design process.”
One important character posed a particular challenge in the making of That Christmas: the snow.
“We realized how much of a role snow would play in the environment, how important it was,” recalls producer Nicole Hearon (Moana, Frozen). “It was a huge part of our world and could add fun and creativity for the audience, and so much life and emotion. But there are different kinds of snowfall if you alter the flakes, their numbers, and intensity. And with all of that, we realized we could change the overall feeling. So we had to develop a terminology.”
The team developed eight different kinds of snowfall. But that also meant more work. “When I first rolled on, the thought was that 30 percent of the film was going to have [visual] effects,” says Hearon. “But then we realized it was 80 percent.”
Of course, that also meant the risk of increased costs. “This is a big budgeting challenge,” Otto acknowledges. “But you just had to be more effective — cut some shots short where you felt we don’t really need it there. And I’m proud to say that there was not one compromise that in the end didn’t turn out better for the film.”
No debates were needed about casting Cox, whose popularity has only risen with his work in the much more Scrooge-y role as media titan Logan Roy in Succession. Even though there was a process that saw the team land on him. “We did think Santa should be from the North,” shares Curtis. “One place we thought about was Scandinavia, so Stellan Skarsgård drifted through our minds.”
“It was our opportunity to bring in a character that is international while making sure that our cast was local,” explains Otto. “Santa was our chance to internationalize it and add a foreign element. [Cox] is Scottish, but he has an accent that’s not too strong.” Plus, he brings the acting chops, of course.
“He has this ability to be both edgy and really sweet and warm and tender on the storytelling side,” says Otto. “It was really important that he’s able to narrate the story in a way that makes you feel like you are sitting at a bedside and listening to a father narrating a story to a child. He brings together the Britishness while also adding an international feel. And, in fact, his role only expanded throughout the project, because we loved his work so much.”
The creative team agrees in their hope of seeing That Christmas become a new holiday tradition for many. “I would like to see it become the gift that keeps on giving because it’ll be there next year,” Lockhart says. “And so it can become one of those classics. If that happens, it would just make our lives complete.”
Adds Simon: “That would be our absolute dream — if the film becomes a perennial thing. People watch it at Christmas and little by little, as you rewatch it, you discover things you haven’t seen the first time. That would be the big, big dream come true.”
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That Christmas is now streaming on Netflix.
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