Stream It or Skip It: ‘A Boy Called Christmas’ on Netflix, Where Maggie Smith Tells a New Version of Santa’s Origin

Saint Nicholas gets a new origin in A Boy Called Christmas on Netflix. This time around, the kid who would be Santa Claus embarks on a surprisingly dark fairytale quest and encounters a who’s who of character actors in elaborate fantasy costumes. Is this an origin story worth the retcon, or should you just stick with the Rankin/Bass canon? 

A BOY CALLED CHRISTMAS: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: A Boy Called Christmas is presented exactly how every single movie should be presented: as a bedtime story told by Maggie Smith. This is an old timey tale about a young boy named Nikolas (Henry Lawfull) who lives in the woods with his father Joel (Michiel Huisman) in long-ago Finland. At Nikolas’s request, Joel frequently retells a story about a young girl named Lumi and her journey to a magical land called Elfhelm. This idyllic life (well, that’s what Nikolas thinks it is; Joel knows better) is interrupted when the king (Jim Broadbent) orders the hardiest villagers to travel beyond the borders of their kingdom to bring back something that inspires hope. Whoever does so gets a reward—and Joel knows his family of two needs the dough!

Joel sets out on a mission to find this vague idea of hope, leaving Nikolas in the “care” of his truly terrible aunt Caroltta (Kristen Wiig). But when days turn into weeks and there’s still no sign of his father, Nikolas decides to set out and find him and Elfhelm. The kid brings his trusty pet field mouse Miika along and begins his epic quest.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: The structure is right out of The Princess Bride and the subject matter is in line with Netflix’s animated Santa origin movie Klaus. Really, the film has way more in common with a few classic, young adult fantasy films created to both delight and disturb kids: The Witches and The NeverEnding Story. Or maybe it’ll remind you of Santa Claus: The Movie, which is both a Santa origin and a creepy 1980s kids movie.

Performance Worth Watching: It bodes well that I can’t narrow this down to just one performer. Jim Broadbent’s king has a small part, but he’s responsible for some of the biggest laughs in the movie. And Kristen Wiig and Sally Hawkins are clearly having a blast playing over-the-top villains. But I’m gonna give this to Stephen Merchant’s turn as the voice of Miika the mouse. He succeeds in making Miika both condescending and naive. It’s an all around smart and charming performance for a mouse who learns to speak one word at a time.

Memorable Dialogue: Imagine Dame Maggie Smith saying this: “It’s always the way. The darkest night will end. The sun will rise, and Christmas mornings will come again, when anything and everything can happen.” Chills, right?

A Holiday Tradition: The elves at Elfhelm celebrate Christmas, which is what members of the Resistance (yep, there’s an elf resistance!) call their hope-filled shindigs.

Does the Title Make Any Sense?: Seeing as how the film is about a boy who’s nicknamed Christmas and inadvertently learns why on his quest, yes.

Our Take: A Boy Called Christmas is one of those kinds of movies. It’s the kind of movie that you watch as a kid and then years later think, “Wait—did I really watch a horse drown in a muddy swamp because the horse couldn’t defeat sadness?” I’m fully an adult, one who grew up on The NeverEnding Story, and A Boy Called Christmas has me thinking right now, “Wait—did I really watch Kristen Wiig do that to a turnip?” This is a Christmas movie for kids that’s not afraid to be as cold and dark as December often is.

But the film has plenty of warmth and light to it too, and the balance it ultimately finds between the two feels satisfying. It helps that everyone involved in A Boy Called Christmas approached their role, from production design to performance, with equal gusto. There’s a lot of heart in this—strange heart, but heart.

And all of it works, all of the film’s dark leanings work, because Henry Lawfull plays Nikolas/Christmas with such wide-eyed wonder and earnestness. This is a hard kind of character to play, because they can easily be come across as one-dimensional and, worse, unbelievably gullible. Lawfull pays Nikolas as gullible at times, but he always plays the kid with an underlying pragmatism and determination.

The story, based on the 2016 children’s novel of the same name by Matt Haig, is a familiar one (a Santa origin) done in a familiar way (a good old hero’s quest)—but that’s not a critique. I think A Boy Called Christmas has so much originality to it, from the look to the core of its Christmas mythology, that it makes this dependable story structure feel unpredictable. You know the boy called Christmas whose name is Nikolas is gonna end up as Santa Claus, but you’re not sure how or even which of his allies will live to see him slide down his first chimney. And while adults have seen dozens of films tackle the age old Santa questions in a variety of ways, A Boy Called Christmas will give a whole bunch of kids their own answers this holiday season—and I think they’ll like going on this adventure into Santa’s history as much as parents liked Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town , Santa Claus: The Movie, or The Santa Clause.

That is, as long as the kids can handle what Kristen Wiig does to that turnip.

Our Call: STREAM IT. A Boy Called Christmas is an entertaining and imaginative journey for kids who don’t mind a little darkness in their fairytales.

Stream A Boy Called Christmas on Netflix