Christmas Full of Grace review: Ridiculously over-the-top holiday flick

Christmas Full of Grace is a holiday rom-com revolving around Carlinhos and his impromptu encounter with a stranger named Graca that leads to them spending Christmas together with his uptight family. The film is now streaming on Netflix.

Story

Carlinhos and Graca meet under turbulent circumstances just a few days before Christmas. Carlinhos is not looking forward to it while Graca has lost the opportunity to meet her family for Christmas.

She offers to accompany Carlinhos as his pretend girlfriend so that his family sees how well he’s doing and she can get the family Christmas experience she’s looking for.

Her eccentric personality completely unsettles Carlinhos’ family as she gets them to open up and wins over Carlinhos as well. When her secret is revealed, however, Carlinhos argues with her causing her to leave.

He realises later that he loves her with all his heart and goes to great lengths to get her back.

Performances

Gessica Kayane plays the larger-than-life Graca and while she gives everything in this role, it does get a bit grating at times. She’s loud and obnoxious even though she has the right idea. Her antics are funny for the most part but become a little overdone as time passes.

Sérgio Malheiros portrays the much more subdued Carlinhos, although he has his moments of hysteria as well. It isn’t a very strongly written character and Malheiros does the best he can with what he’s been provided.

The rest of the ensemble fit into their roles adequately but are let down by the writing to seriously impact the quality of the film.

Positives

The sets and the entire feel of Christmas are captured well in the film. Having so many different characters also allows the costume department to give it their all and they deck their cast in some eye-catching outfits.

Despite being very predictable, the final third of the film is surprisingly mature and toned down which is an improvement of what precedes it. The story feels a lot easier to stomach due to this final sequence.

Negatives

The story is unoriginal and barely attempts to do things differently when it comes to the lead characters and their journey from start to finish. The writing is poor and derivative.

The soundtrack of the film is all over the place and does not suitably set the tone at any point. It consists of playful tones mixed with random pop music and the odd Christmas song to stay on theme. There appears to be no structure to it.

The narrative itself doesn’t appear to be well planned and has multiple holes and mildly infuriating moments littered throughout. Is Graca’s father the real “Papa Noel” or just someone who impersonated him? If yes, then why wasn’t there more “holiday magic” involved?

Verdict

Christmas Full of Grace is a formulaic, paint-by-numbers film. It deserves to be called all adjectives used to call a trope-heavy, predictable film that depicts a structure followed in almost every other romantic comedy written.

There is some necessary holiday cheer included but it fails to truly make this an enjoyable watch despite the slightly improved ending.

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Also Read: Christmas Full of Grace ending explained: Do Carlinhos and Graca end up together?