The famed writer and producer’s inaugural foray into animation weaves together his kids’ book trilogy into a magical 3DCG tale of family, friends, love, and loneliness – along with countless turkeys – and a Santa facing his most challenging evening ever; from Locksmith Animation, the film debuts globally today, December 4, on Netflix.
With an unparalleled creative history in live-action film and TV, including seminal romantic comedies like Love Actually (2003), Bridget Jones’ Diary (2001), Notting Hill (1999) and Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994), Richard Curtis is no stranger to great writing and storytelling. Nor to Christmas specials such as those associated with his earlier TV work on series like Black Adder. So, it wasn’t a huge stretch to see all three of his recent children’s book about Christmas brought together by London-based studio Locksmith Animation (Ron’s Gone Wrong) and Netflix into one 3DCG animated film, That Christmas, that makes its global streaming debut today, December 4.
Helmed by animation veteran Simon Otto (Love, Death + Robots, How to Train Your Dragon franchise) in his feature film directorial debut, the film follows a series of entwined tales about family and friends, love and loneliness, and Santa Claus making a big mistake, not to mention an enormous number of turkeys. The film also marks Curtis’ first foray into animation, serving as the film’s writer and executive producer.
The stellar voice cast includes Brian Cox as Santa; Fiona Shaw as Ms. Trapper; Jodie Whittaker as Mrs. Williams; Lolly Adefope as Mrs. McNutt; Alex Macqueen as Mr. Forrest; Katherine Parkinson as Mrs. Forrest; Sindhu Vee as Mrs. Mulji; India Brown as Bernadette; Zazie Hayhurst as Sam; Sienna Sayer as Charlie; Jack Wisniewski as Danny; Rosie Cavaliero as Mrs Beccles; Paul Kaye as Yirrell; Guz Khan as Dasher; Andy Nyman as Mr. Beccles; Kuhu Agarwal as Nisha; Bronte Smith as Eve; Freddie Spry as Teddy; Ava Talbot as Scarlett; with Bill Nighy as Bill and Rhys Darby as Mr. McNutt.
Mary Coleman, Natalie Fischer, Julie Lockhart, Elisabeth Murdoch, Bonnie Arnold, Lara Breay, Sarah Smith, Rebecca Cobb, Curtis, and Colin Hopkins serve as executive producers. Nicole P. Hearon (Moana, Frozen) and Adam Tandy (The Thick of It, Detectorists) produce. DNEG produced the animation, its second project with Locksmith, having previously worked on Ron’s Gone Wrong. The film also features an original song by Ed Sheeran, with music by John Powell.
That Christmas is set in the fictional community of Wellington-on-Sea, on the coast of Suffolk, England, which coincidentally (actually, not) was Curtis’ own countryside stomping ground. The story unfolds during one “unforgettable Yuletide,” that takes place, as Santa notes, in a “a town full of problems” that needs “a sackful of fixing” during the most challenging Christmas of his career. And there’s not just one story of the townsfolks’ Christmas going sideways. There are three stories deftly intertwined, all heading to a “dramatic crescendo one memorable Christmas Eve.”
Check out the holly jolly trailer now:
Asked what it is about animation that enticed him creatively into making the film, Curtis told AWN, “Well, I mean, that's a big question, but in this case, I think I was particularly glad that the animated movie I did was with kids, because I think to coax wonderful performances out of kids in animation, and I'm going right back to the Charlie Brown movies, is sort of easier to do because there's not the pressure of 60 adults and a deadline. So, I think it's lovely being able to do that.”
He continues, “I also think that if you're telling quite an intimate story, animation can do with human emotion and human faces something that is really hard for real humans to do. You get four emotions really quickly. There are moments in this movie where a child is sort of scared, excited, happy, and worried in a very few seconds. So, I've really loved, in fact, what animation can do with a little human face. It’s been one of my great joys, as well as the general beauty, which I really adored, and Simon got such a great team together.”
Acknowledging the difficulty in adapting a single kids’ book into animation, let alone three different books, Curtis shares that the process was more an expansion of his written work rather than a weaving or cut and pasting together. “Well, it was a lot of fun,” he explains. “I had the original stories and then I actually had to double them or treble them. I mean, the interesting thing structurally in this movie was that Santa seems to be the solution. Two of the three books ended on Christmas Day, and we wanted to go on after Santa and after Christmas Day when life's problems take over once again. That was the most complicated thing, sort of creating an engine. After it seemed like Santa had solved everything, creating an engine to take us through to a big satisfying end a couple of days later.”
Curtis also notes that working in animation was both similar to and quite different from his work in live-action. “A lot of things you're doing are the same, like rewriting, casting, and editing. But the real difference is they happen at the same time. So, in live-action, you write it, you shoot it, you edit it, they're one after another. In an animated movie, it's like layers of a lasagna. You can edit all the time, you can cast new people at any point, you can add new lines right at the end of the process. It's the same things, but in a different configuration.”
Dan Sarto is Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Animation World Network.
