Netflix Christmas movie season is upon us! I like these more than the lifetime movies, cause there’s a better chance that the movie 1) might actually film on location somewhere instead of springtime Vancouver, and 2) the movie’s ambitions sometimes try to reach greater heights than an overworked female character meeting a quirky small town widowed hunk of a man. Jingle Bell Heist isn’t breaking the mold here, but in a sea of schmaltzy crap, this one might actually have you put your phone down to pay attention to what’s going on. That doesn’t sound like a ringing endorsement, but I think it’s the highest compliment you can give in our streaming world today.
The target in question in Jingle Bell Heist is Sterling Department Store in London, run by the ruthless Maxwell Sterling (Peter Serafinowicz). That type of businessman makes enemies. One is Sophie Arbus (Olivia Holt), a US transplant struggling making ends meet working in his store, trying to provide healthcare for her dying mother (Mariah Louca). The other is Nick O’Connor (Connor Swindells), an ex con surveillance tech worker who ended up there after a botched job for the store. Catching Sophie making a 5 finger discount, Nick attempts to bribe her: work with him to steal the diamonds inside the Sterling vault…or he’ll release the tapes. Sophie calls Nick’s bluff…but mom still needs stem cell treatments.
Anyone who’s seen a Netflix Christmas movie can already see the adorable romcom ending here. But fortunately for us, so do the director Michael Fimognari and writer Abby McDonald. As such, the ending isn’t as important to them as the journey to get there: the goal is to make the audience want the dream ending. Like any good romcom, that means building the movie smartly. Nick and Sophie both have instantly empathetic sad sack stories that prove how sweet they are despite that distrusting external demeanor. The reason they don’t like each other but forced to be together isn’t manufactured, it’s organic to the story. Stuck together the two bring out the best in each other, and show off their heist skills, including a very amusing improvised first kiss. Meanwhile, that forced time breaks down the barriers, letting them fully see the other and possibly fall in love, in real spaces real London residents might hang out around. Olivia Holt and Connor Swindells don’t have “oh la la” level chemistry, but the energy between them is perfectly fine for a streaming Christmas movie, with the wise ass Holt matched nicely with the under his breath mutterer Swindells.
As much as that gooey romcom stuff matters, the smartest thing Abby McDonald’s script does is keep the leads’ eyes on the prize. Both Sophia and Nick leave their relationship on the backburner to make sure this heist succeeds…just like the script and direction. A good heist movie never goes smoothly: it always should have some wrinkles. Jingle Bell Heist has 2. One you might see coming, revolving around Cynthia (Lucy Punch), the wife of Maxwell Sterling, but the setup to get there is wonderfully executed, with some of the best laughs of the movie and sneaky smart character building. The other is during the big swindling of Sterling Department Store. Director Fimognari (the To All the Boys guy) does a great job teasing us the layout we’ll be dealing with so when the heist is going on, we know exactly what is happening. But inside of that, of course there’s a wrinkle, but in this case, the solution to that wrinkle comes out of nowhere, but somehow makes total sense, helps tie up any character loose ends you might have about our leads, and elevates the stakes just another notch. Maybe that’s the heist of Jingle Bell Heist really: Michael Fimognari and Abby McDonald stole the breath from the audience because of how surprised we were to be into a randomly dropped Netflix Christmas movie.
I might be overselling Jingle Bell Heist a bit, but I don’t care. It was nice to get swept up in a movie that could have phoned it in but didn’t. Big year for Olivia Holt, by the way! Here’s hoping Connor makes an appearance in Heart Eyes 2, sadly, probably not a Netflix Christmas movie.