Last modified on Tue 6 Apr 2021 08.31 EDT
The freewheeling improv style of Jamie Adams (who directed the daffy comedy Black Mountain Poets) hits a wall in his new film about a family Christmas in Wales. There are comedy scenes here that flatline and lightweight fake-feeling emotional moments. Model-actors Suki Waterhouse and Poppy Delevingne are the stars: they look pretty uncomfortable playing sisters visiting their folks for the holidays. Maybe itâs snarky to say, but with their gorgeous knitwear and expensive London accents, itâs hard to buy either of them dunking a Bourbon into a cuppa.
Waterhouse is Iris, a flaky-quirky, beret-wearing film composer who has landed a massive gig writing the soundtrack for a big-time Hollywood movie. The trouble is sheâs creatively stuck, and anxious about her mum who is dying of an unspecified terminal illness (fading gently propped up on pillows, no fuss). Irisâs sister, Abigail (Delevingne), is back too, and the suggestion is that this is their last family Christmas together.