Christmas as Usual

Muy al contrario de lo que su título sostiene, está es una película sobre navidad nada usual, en dónde la confrontación cultural planteada al centro de la historia resulta algo entretenida, sin embargo el ritmo y algo que no sé nombrar hace que no funcione del todo. Acabó siendo rara.

This is a terrible film. Shallow writing and Jashan’s character (Indian) is annoyingly uncultured. The fact that he’s joining his fiancés family (Norwegian) for christmas holidays, it is expected for him to adjust. However, I don’t understand the audacity of his character shoving his culture down their throats. I can’t stand characters with no courtesy to his surroundings. Waste of my time tbh. This is a good movie to play for background noise while you’re cleaning your house.

The plot—an Indian fish out of water in Norway for Christmas—-is tired. Poorly respected by his fiancé’s family meeting him for the first time, Joshan tries pretty hard to fit in to no avail. Usual happy ending. What made it most interesting was watching Norwegian Christmas rituals, of which I knew very little. Also Norwegian winter scenery. In the Netflix version I watched there was little varying between when characters were speaking Norwegian or English as it was entirely in English. But a more interesting movie then many of the Hallmark Christmas movies with cookie-cutter plots.

One of those well-intentioned movies demonstrating the challenges but also the possible rewards of multicultural relationships. Everyone kind of dealt negatively with the situation - neither was the Norwegian family welcoming, nor was the Indian character really so willing to play by their rules. Ultimately though the problem was that it was actually quite boring, though colorful and well-made.

Not a comedy, not even remotely. Train wreck that you don’t want to watch. Complete lack of communication between all characters creates incredibly awkward, unwelcoming family situation. Got halfway through and shut it off. Don’t waste your time.

I am surprised that Kanan Gill who is an amazing comic btw, decided to just play this obnoxious character of Jashan. Ranting to his mom loudly outside church, ruining Ronya's gig and not being genuinely sorry for it was just too much for me to bear. And Christmas in India is celebrated with carols, church sermons and amazing food not "5,4,3,2,1 and Merry Christmas", that is like major downplaying and trivalising of cultural heterogenity of India. Jashan is so ignorant of this and is wary of blending into Thea's cultural traditions calling them cult. Rather than bringing people together, the food scenes are where the cultures clash and in just the worst ways, because of the blatant stereotyping of the story that brings in the spicy vs bland debate. The end with maang tikas and fulkaari dupatta just felt so forced and completely unecessary. The movie played into typical stereotypes portraying Indians as loud and overbearing. I watch a lot of christmas movies, predictable, feel good and was actually excited to see Kanan Gill's stint as an actor. This was so outrageous that I had to leave a review so that others do not waste their time.

I had misfortune of watching this movie with my wife and I am not even a fan of Cheesy Christmas movies. I am an Indian and I hated Jashan. Like he was entitled, pushy, didn't understand personal boundaries, inconsiderate, thinks he is funny but is not, always wants to be center of attention, mannerless. The movie should have ended with Thea not marrying this asshole seriously. Although the potrayal of a typical North Indian Man is accurate. The writer i am sure has had a first hand experience with North Indian men. Seriously a true toxic Indian man and the movie should have ended up with her dumping this loser. Also, as Indians being cultural diverse we are also very accommodating and considerate about various cultures and customs unlike Jashan. Jashan ruined this movie completely

Terrible. No likeable characters and it's a movie with lots of angst. Can't recommend

Jashan is awful. He is loud and selfish, destroying Christmas for everyone. He doesn’t deserve his happy ending. In fact, just the dog and the little girl deserve a happy end. Most of the movie makes me angry…

I’ve never felt so uncomfortable watching a Christmas film, but not in a thought provoking way, simply in a torturous and unnecessarily stupid way. At first I felt very bad for Jashan and you knew right away things would be awkward and not entirely welcoming for him in Norway. The mother of his fiancé is very insular & it’s hard to watch her reaction when meeting him, and clear she wanted her daughter to be with her ex. But even harder to watch is Jashan’s obliviously disrespectful and annoying behaviour towards the whole family and Norwegian culture. He starts immediately calling his fiancée’s mother “mama” after she politely asks him not to. There is nothing endearing about taking over the kitchen of someone you’ve just met and forcing everyone to eat your food and expect them to all love it. Then when it’s his turn to eat their food he makes a massive scene about how bad it is, on xmas day no less. The background film clips were beautiful and the film could have been interesting & the story could have shared a message, as the actor has so much potential not to be so stupid. But the film decided to make Jashan into the most annoying, unaware character it’s actually simply not believable (making the loudest phone call he possibly can in earshot of the entire church durIng the singing recital) Every scene but the final one is so cringey it’s almost sickening. You don’t get a rest from the horribly awkward mess.