Christmas, Again
Ten years after it premiered in the United States, Charles Poekel’s feature-length debut, Christmas, Again, finally makes its way across the pond. Made on a shoestring budget, this soulful drama explores the seldom depicted melancholy of the holiday season.
The aptly named Noel (Kentucker Audley) grapples with heartache amid the looming holidays, something that’s compounded by his unfortunate job (he’s a Christmas tree salesman). Having recently split from his girlfriend, he lives in an on-site trailer, ensuring his interactions with people are kept to a minimum. One night, he notices a young woman, Lydia (Hannah Gross, whom Mindhunter fans will recognise from the sorely missed series), passed out on a bench beside an elderly man. In fear of her safety, Noel carries her back to his trailer and the two form a sweet bond that offers some hope.
All too often, festive stories are centred on couples and families, and in a traditional tale, Noel would be an incidental character. But here he’s a reluctant lead. As such, there’s subtle class commentary in this slice-of-life indie flick. Noel survives on advent calendar chocolate (or so it first appears), energy pills and lotto tickets; his boss berates him while snatching profits from his hands, and he has to contend with snobby customers who talk down to him. Set in Brooklyn, it’s also refreshing to see Christmas in New York from the perspective of a lowly worker, as opposed to a rabid Madison Avenue consumer.
Depression is often at its highest during the festive period, wherein merry spirits are something of a societal expectation. Even the title itself invokes the cyclical monotony of life as a seasonal worker. With its lo-fi aesthetic, the film is anchored by understated performances from Audley and Gross, who share a natural rapport. The dialogue is reminiscent of the mumblecore subgenre (itself inspired by the realist cinema of John Cassavetes) of the mid 2000s and early 2010s, with fleeting glances in lieu of Hollywood exposition. It’s a tad flat and monotone, but for a movie centred around loneliness and depression, that may be precisely the point.
An anti-Christmas movie of sorts, Christmas, Again is a worthy antidote to the saccharine films that inundate our screens throughout December. This poignant, relatable tale of festive blues may not be escapist fare, but it’s all the better for it.
Antonia Georgiou
Christmas, Again is released in select cinemas on 12th December 2025.
Watch the trailer for Christmas, Again here:
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