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Reviews
Much Ado About Christmas (2021)
Shakespeare? Really?
Far too American to pass as anything but that. The accents are uneven, the Canadians doing the best with it, and not only are the prices in dollars, there are supposedly British characters who order 'fries' in a restaurant, which is just wrong, which the American writers were clearly too ignorant/arrogant to understand. The comparison to Much Ado About nothing is nominal to the point of nearly being false advertising, the ties between the two weak indeed, not least because the dynamic between Benedick and Beatrice (Ben and Bea here) is well known, by those that DO know, to the be best part of the original. Yet, they are barely in this, relegated to the role of whacky side characters, raising suspicions that the writers didn't bother read the original before 'updating' it. Even Joss Whedon, yes, the Buffy guy, did better.
The Christmas Ball (2020)
Criminally Underrated
With a solid cast of great British and Irish actors (not the same thing), a sweet premise that adds things that are a little different, like a female lead aging out of her preferred profession and male lead who is an academic, and writing that is engaging, relatabe and funny without the contrivance so common in American projects, I am frankly baffled by the low ratings. They even capitulated to the American audience, despite being a Canadian-made film, by having the lead be from Boston (despite the performer being Irish). I guess the isolationist Americans just couldn't get their heads around the accents of the rest of the cast.