JINGLE BELL HEIST

US, 2025, 95 minutes, colour.

Olivia Holt, Connor Swindells, Lucy Punch, Peter Serafinowicz.

Directed by Michael Fimognari.

The film title indicates that this is a Christmas film. However, until we arrive at the role the sake happier, nicer ending, it is not so very Christmassy.

There is a prologue where a couple are ready to rob a safe – and then the flashback.

We are introduced to Sophia, a lively Olivia Holt, an American living in London, working in a popular store with its Christmas rush, looking after her ill mother in hospital. But, we see very quickly, that she can be tough, is an expert pickpocket, with a touch of generosity to those in need, and able to do some mini heists with aplomb.

She encounters Nick, a rather morose Connor Swindells, divorced father, devoted to his daughter. It emerges that he has put in the security system at the department store, but has gone to jail, accused of stealing and fraud. Sophia decides that he would be just the one to rob the safe of the store.

The arrogant manager of the store has a showy wife, popular in the public eye but behind the scenes clashes with her husband.

So, while the film has its humane story of the father and his family, the daughter and her sick mother, and the need for some high finance for her medical procedures, the film spends a lot of time on the store and her ability to develop her larceny skills, persuading Nick to collaborate with her.

So, a variation on a Christmas theme – but, some revelations as the film goes on, the charges against Nick and the reality behind them, and quite a surprise for the audience when Sophia targets the store manager and confronts him.

The safe is opened with all kinds  of consequences which can then lead to a happy ending, family reunions, and the spirit of Christmas.

Whether such action is possible in real life, it doesn’t quite matter because it is all presented as a differently imagined heist with its intentions and motivations.