Kanan Gill in 'Christmas As Usual': A Comedian's Departure from Pretentious Movie Reviews
Exploring Cultural Clashes in a Cheesy Christmas Romantic Comedy
Given his reputation for dissecting campy Bollywood movies, why would Kanan Gill choose a cheesy Christmas romantic comedy? After watching Christmas As Usual on Netflix, you may be wondering this, especially if you enjoyed the stand-up comedian's YouTube series Pretentious Movie Reviews.
In the movie Christmas As Usual, Kanan portrays Jashan Joshi, also known as Jash, the Indian boyfriend of Thea (Ida Ursin-Holm), a Norwegian girl. Thea intends to introduce him to her family on Christmas and inform her mother Anne-Lise (Marit Adeleide Andreassen) about their engagement. That time never comes since Thea's Indian fiancé and her Norwegian family have different cultural backgrounds, which occasionally cause tensions to flare up into major issues.
Jash is an outsider who gets in the way of Anne-Lise's obsession with having the ideal Christmas in keeping with her late husband's wishes because he is not familiar with Norwegian Yuletide customs. While Jash makes an effort to blend in, the mayhem gets out of control to the point where, on Christmas eve, he fights with Thea's ex-boyfriend, who also happens to be their neighbor.
Before departing, Jash accuses Thea of betraying him. Thea eventually loses it and tells her mom that she and Jash are engaged. The two lovers are then reunited after Anne-Lise experiences a sudden and implausible change of heart.
Christmas As Usual feels jaded due to its formulaic plot and director Petter Holmsen's overdone treatment of the theme, even with respectable performances from Kanan, Ida, and Marit in a time when intercultural relationships are no longer unusual.
The way that Norwegian and Indian customs have been portrayed has only helped to spread false beliefs about them. The rituals practised in Norway appear to be little more than the vacuous beliefs of a cult, while India is perceived as a primitive nation overflowing with people and spices.
A song from a Punjabi wedding adds to the clichés. A few scenes from Thea and Jash's subsequent cross-cultural Christmas celebration, who are now married, are included in the closing sequence. Thea wears a maangtika with her bunad, while Anne-Lise, who is cold and distant, wears hers with jhumkas. I wonder what Kanan's pretentious movie reviews would have to say about this movie.
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