Secret Santa Project Review – A festive romantic comedy that attempts the realistic love approach in several stories | film

Feelgood’s romantic Christmas comedies are like school nativity plays: you can forgive a lot for a toasty, festive glow. The Secret Santa Project, based on the book by Tracey Bloom and set in the accounting department of a London council, manages brief flashes of cozy magic in places but really feels a bit like The Hangover of Christmas.

Like Richard Curtis’s Love, in fact, this is a film with a bunch of interwoven storylines. Samantha Giles plays Diane, a sullen head of accounts who follows the London romantic comedy tradition of working over Westminster Bridge after Big Ben; She wants to cancel Christmas and save a few pounds for the council. Her husband Leon (Mark Williams) is a panto film director, and Diane suspects he is having an affair with Snow White. This plot line isn’t a million miles away from Emma Thompson’s in Love Actually, but it’s at odds with a clumsy, poignantly lacking resolution as Thompson slips into the bedroom to cry on Christmas Day.

At work, Diane’s second-in-command, Jerry (Barry Ryan English), falls in love with a man he meets at a coffee shop. Cheerful graduate Jolene (Myla Carmen) tries to bring Christmas cheer with her Secret Santa plan – exchanging acts of kindness in lieu of new stockings under five. The best performance comes from former EastEnders actor Charlie Brooks as Stacey, a single mother whose new boyfriend is clearly a complete douche.

There are some things worth writing home about. The film highlights the office dynamics where people have worked with each other for years and tolerate each other’s foibles with a glance or sideways glance. But its happy endings feel unearned and can leave you with a sick feeling akin to eating the leftovers of a three-day-old turkey with leftover sherry.