12 Films of Christmas - Numbers 3 to 1
3. Woman of the Hour – three bachelors
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Anna Kendrick adds remarkable directing to her panoply of skills with Woman of the Hour, a haunting thriller about a struggling actress and serial killer crossing paths on a dating show. Based on the real story of Rodney Alcala appearing on The Dating Game in 1978, Kendrick plays the woman in question, Sheryl Bradshaw, who hesitantly accepts to be a contestant – unbeknownst to her, one of the three men on the other side of the partition is Alcala, who had by this time already murdered at least five women. Expertly jumping back and forth between his and Sheryl’s life across multiple periods, the film features Daniel Zovatto (of It Follows), terrifyingly brilliant as Alcala, navigating the line between charming and chilling in leather jacket and long hair. Meanwhile, Kendrick sports her usual plucky persona, complete with snappy retorts and rebellion – nevertheless, as soon as there is no partition, an uncomfortable and out of sorts meekness brims to the surface, one that makes for some particularly tense silences.
As large sections of the film are dedicated to Alcala’s interactions – and eventual murders – of other women, it’s quite striking how little onscreen time he and Bradshaw actually share. A lot of time is accorded to her preparations and hesitations in the lead up to the show, marked by her creepy next door neighbour Terry (Pete Holmes), while Alcala hones in on a lost street urchin (a fantastic performance from Autumn Best). Woman of the Hour is, strangely, more about the build up than Alcala and Bradshaw’s interaction – it’s what makes The Dating Game sequences, in which Alcala expertly outperforms the two other bachelors (one blatantly misogynistic, the other even more blatantly dim), that bit more nail-biting. And after quite genuinely one of the most scary sequences I have ever seen in a thriller, Woman of the Hour, even more strangely, disappears into a puff of postscript smoke, nothing but a distant, yet unsettling memory.
2. Carry On – two metal detectors
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This is certainly not the most sophisticated of choices for number two, but it was the only one I watched twice – and the only one (bar number one) that could have kept me hooked on a second viewing so close to the first (a mere couple of days). Taron Egerton is on top form as Ethan Kopek, a TSA Officer at LAX who on Christmas Eve is blackmailed into letting a dangerous package slip through security. It’s full of the usual clichés – Ethan is rundown and cynical, stuck in a dead end job, and the day he decides to grow a pair and volunteer himself to man a baggage-scanning lane is obviously the one where Jason Bateman decides to organise his little heist. The latter really pulls through as a villain, taking his sweet time to reveal his face from behind a meticulously placed trucker cap before unleashing hell on poor Ethan. Having solely seen him in the likes of Game Night and Horrible Bosses, I can only look forward to him taking on more out of sorts roles like this. He quite literally kills it.
Carry On is certainly a little all over the place, with its fair share of plot holes and inconceivable missed shots and close calls – but it’s found a balance somewhere between genuinely exhilarating action blockbuster and suspension of disbelief flop. I was not bored for a second. So if you want an atypical action Christmas film for 2025, and you don’t like Die Hard, try this – I’m seeing it go down as a future Christmas-not-Christmas cult classic.
1. Challengers – and a steamy game of tennis!
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No one does horny quite like Luca Guadagnino. His second-to-latest (I have yet to see Queer) is a love triangle par excellence, featuring Mike Faist, Josh O’Connor and Zendaya bang on in the middle as a trio of tennis players, from inception through to middle aged squabbles. It’s hot, sweaty, and I sat on the edge of my sofa the whole time, giggling to myself.
Zendaya is Tashi, a promising young player Patrick and Art find themselves transfixed by from the moment they see her play – by far the best scene in the film. A pumping score accompanies – Oscar nomination most well deserved. Art whispers “that backhand” under his breath, and Patrick grabs his friend’s thigh in apprehension. The two retreat awkwardly. Tension between the two men is more palpable than any they experience with Zendaya who, although clearly the object of desire, is also a “homewrecker” and almost a third wheel in what could easily be interpreted as one of the greatest friendship films of all time. This is not to say that her character isn’t fleshed out or of interest – Zendaya’s ability to play gawky teen through to suave mistress of the house and court is spellbinding, and her values and determination are a steadfast marker throughout, especially when compared to Art and Patrick’s less than convincing work ethics. All three are superb – when Tashi says tennis is like a relationship, it is, perhaps almost too obviously, a precursor to the years of backs and forths that will follow, as she navigates from one man to the next, ripping them apart and bringing them closer together with a flick of her wrist. But Challengers is not to be mistaken for Call Me By Your Name levels of horniness – it is on the contrary quite amusing, watching kids who have missed the ball by a millimetre. But, and I do not say this lightly, never has a backhand been so sexy.