Christmas as Usual Parent Guide

“God Jul” – it’s Norwegian for “Merry Christmas” but that’s more a wish than a reality for Thea (Ida Ursin-Holm).

Living in Los Angeles and recently engaged to her Indian boyfriend, Thea is bringing Jashan (Kanan Gill) home to Norway to meet her family. She dreams of a joyous engagement announcement and a picture-perfect Christmas season, but it looks like she can’t have both.

Christmas as Usual tries to be a cross-cultural romantic comedy and sometimes it succeeds. Jash’s mystification over the “Norwegian Christmas cult” is amusing and his willingness to try isbading before he knows what it is will raise a chuckle. Too many other moments fall flat – like Jash’s inadvertent disruption of a church service – or lack subtlety – like Thea’s family’s overreaction to a spicy Indian meal.

Rom-coms often have trouble hitting both the “romance” and “comedy” elements of the genre. This film’s sometimes shaky comedy would be manageable if the romance were enchanting. But it isn’t. Thea and Jash don’t have much on-screen chemistry. He’s eager and endearing; she’s tentative and withdrawn. Frankly, the Christmas tree has more sparkle than these two conjure up together.

Christmas as Usual might not deliver the expected rom-com emotions, but it also delivers less sex than usual with only a few kissing scenes. On the flip side, it contains some scenes of heavy drinking and brief drunk driving. There are also a dozen profanities, including two sexual expletives. The TV-14 rating is appropriate here.

Thematically, this story opens discussions about prejudice, insularity, loyalty, and the importance of honest communication. Unfortunately, these themes, like the romance, don’t feel well developed. Christmas as Usual delivers a few laughs and might prompt some self-assessment, but like the rest of the seasonal rom-com genre, it doesn’t make an effort to go any deeper. It’s like an empty box under the tree: it looks pretty and might create a fun sense of anticipation, but once you unwrap it, there’s really nothing there.