Cast: Kunal Nayyar, Leo Suter, Charithra Chandran, Pixie Lott, Danny Dyer, Boy George, Hugh Bonneville, Billy Porter, Eva Longoria
Genre: Comedy, Family, Fantasy
Director: Gurinder Chadha
In Irish Cinemas: 14th November 2025
Every December, it seems impossible to walk into a cinema without tripping over yet another retelling of A Christmas Carol. Charles Dickens’ 1843 fable has been adapted so many times that even Wikipedia throws up its hands and calls the total “countless.” At this point, one might reasonably wonder if the world truly needs another version of Ebenezer Scrooge’s ghostly redemption arc.
Enter Gurinder Chadha, ever the cinematic contrarian. The filmmaker behind Bend It Like Beckham (2002) and cross-cultural reimaginings like Bride & Prejudice and It’s A Wonderful Afterlife once again takes a well-worn classic and refracts it through her distinctly multicultural lens. Her latest project, Christmas Karma, poses a question no one else has dared to ask: what if Scrooge were Hindu?
Here, Dickens’ miserly curmudgeon becomes Eshaan Sood, played by The Big Bang Theory’s Kunal Nayyar, a gruff, conservative Indian businessman who bristles not just at Christmas cheer, but at the very idea of celebrating a Christian holiday. “This madness is not for us!” he bellows, voicing the sort of tension that naturally arises in a multifaith, modern Britain still learning how to share its traditions.
Chadha enriches the familiar Scrooge archetype with a compelling and unusually layered backstory. Eshaan’s bitterness is rooted not only in lost love but in a childhood scarred by exile, his family among those expelled from Uganda under Idi Amin’s regime, and the trauma of arriving in the UK as British citizens, only to face racism and rejection. Few mainstream directors are as committed as Chadha to filtering genre storytelling through the immigrant experience, and that ambition alone gives Christmas Karma a fresh emotional texture.
Unfortunately, strong ideas don’t always translate to strong execution. The film’s early minutes are dizzying, a breakdancing Santa, a grim track about the cost-of-living crisis, and an inexplicably CGI’d Hugh Bonneville who looks like he’s wandered in from a PlayStation cutscene. The three ghosts are equally bewildering in conception and casting: Eva Longoria as a Day-of-the-Dead-inspired Ghost of Christmas Past, Billy Porter crooning his way through the Present, and Boy George, naturally, as the melodious Ghost of Christmas Future.
Then the singing begins and the cracks widen. Chadha gestures toward Bollywood grandeur, bolstered by cameos from Priyanka Chopra (who belts out a “Desi Version” of Last Christmas over the end credits) and bhangra icons Jassi Sidhu and Malkit Singh. Yet the film’s original songs, penned by Gary Barlow, fail to rise to the occasion. The result is less joyful spectacle, more “bah, humbug” karaoke.
Visually, Christmas Karma never quite reaches the sweeping splendour it’s aiming for. Instead, it plays like a glitter-smeared Christmas panto: cheerful but unmistakably cheap. The seams show lip-syncing wobbles, green-screen edges glow, CGI backgrounds flicker, and even the performances, however well-intentioned, often feel more small-screen than cinematic. It’s shooting for Ealing Studios charm, but lands closer to an EastEnders Christmas special (not helped by the presence of Danny Dyer as a singing cabbie named Colin).
Still, there’s a sincerity in Chadha’s vision that’s hard to dismiss. Amid the garish sweaters, postcard shots of Big Ben, Oxford Street, and the all-hands-at-Winter-Wonderland finale, you can feel her yearning to craft a multicultural answer to the Richard Curtis Christmas canon. Christmas Karma may stumble in its delivery, but it’s never cynical, and that warmth, however unevenly packaged, might earn it a place on Britain’s festive film roster for years to come.
Overall: 6/10
Movie Reviewer
