Father Christmas Is Back is a 2021 British Christmas comedy film directed by Philippe Martinez and Mick Davis and starring Elizabeth Hurley, Nathalie Cox, John Cleese and Kelsey Grammer. Talulah Riley, Caroline Quentin, Kris Marshall, April Bowlby, Ray Fearon and Naomi Frederick also star.
Four sisters – Caroline, Joanna, Paulina, and Vicky – reunite for the Christmas Holiday in a Yorkshire mansion. However, their estranged father, James, joins in for the first time since he left the family behind decades prior. The group attempts to get through the holiday despite comedic misunderstandings, while also uncovering the long-buried secret that tore their family apart, so many years ago.
This movie provides examples of:
- Advertised Extra: Jackie, James' girlfriend, who mostly stays on the background aside from dating James and supporting the situation with his daughters.
- A Mistake Is Born: Downplayed. With the reveal that Elizabeth cheated on James with John, Vicky turns out to have been conceived through their multiple sex encounters. Before that, Joanna sobbingly assumes she is the mistake regarding her personality, only for Elizabeth to point out that she and James had her when they were still teenagers.
- Big Brother Bully: John to James.
- Big "NO!": Peter has an unaudible one as he tries to stop Jackie from fusing the house's electricity, to no avail.
- Cain and Abel: James and John are brothers, who are at odds with each other. John is the Cain to James' Abel.
- Cannot Talk to Women: A very inverted example with Paulina, who is a lesbian and can't act on it.
- Child Hater: Joanna clearly despises Caroline's children and angrily yells at them for playing with her personal stuff. However, she subverts this when she gets pregnant, which excites her boyfriend Felix who thinks she'll make a good mother someday.
- Children Are Innocent: Caroline tries defending her children from Joanna when she threatens them for messing with her personal stuff.
- Cool Aunt: Vicky is one to Caroline's children, Daisey and Henry.
- Coming-Out Story: For Paulina, who every Christmas year comes out as lesbian to her sisters, but she hasn't demonstrated it since she doesn't have the courage to talk to a woman. At the end of the film, she immediately connects with a blonde woman she previously met at a bar, who is a fan of The Beatles.
- Daddy Had a Good Reason for Abandoning You: James' reason to leave the family was to get over the ache of Elizabeth cheating on him with John.
- Deadpan Snarker: Joanna is the snarkiest of her sisters. John also has this with his brother James, mostly calling him "the absent father".
- Dumb Is Good: Jackie shows genuine concern for James' estrangement from his daughters.
- Ethical Slut: Vicky likes seeing men for sex, but she is nevertheless one of the nicest characters in the film and is shown to be fond of James and Caroline's children.
- Everyone Has Standards: Caroline didn't like it when Joanna made her children cry just for playing with her stuff.
- The Fashionista: Not only is Joanna obsessed with fashion, but is a fashion designer herself.
- Friend to All Children: Jackie to her boyfriend James' grandchildren.
- Green-Eyed Monster: John implies to have been this to James as he apologizes to him.
- Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: Jackie, James' bubbly girlfriend.
- Hair-Trigger Temper: Joanna, of all people.
- Henpecked Husband: Poor Peter is long-suffering and dopey under his wife's wing and they have been sleeping in separate bedrooms for the past 18 months. Nevertheless, he truly loves her.
- It's All About Me: Vicky lampshades this to Caroline for pushing people around in order to make her perfect Christmas.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Despite his constant bickerings with James, John does make himself useful in apologizing to him for him (James) "behaving better than he did" and giving him a lift to find Peter and clarify the misunderstanding about the positive pregnancy test that belonged to Joanna.
- Luke, I Am Your Father: Vicky's real father is John, making James her uncle instead.
- May–December Romance: Between James and Jackie.
- Nice Mean And In Between: The four Christmas sisters. Paulina and Vicky (nice), snobbish Joanna (mean) and perfectionist talkative Caroline (in-between).
- Not Even Bothering with the Accent: Kelsey Grammer and April Bowlby, the only American actors of the film's cast, don't even try putting an effort in sounding British.
- Oh, Crap!:
- Jackie says "O...M...G..." after accidentally fusing the electricity of the house when she tries to decorate the house American style.
- Caroline's shocked reaction after finding Joanna's positive pregnancy test in her bathroom, which Peter, who assumed she was having an affair with another man, saw. Has the same reaction when Elizabeth reveals that she had an affair with their uncle John.
- Vicky deducing that John is her real father. "Oh God, no", she apallingly replies as he shows up.
- Parental Abandonment: This trope is the backbone of the film, as James, the patriarch of the Christmas family, abandonded his daughters years ago, and in turn they grew estranged from him, even more when he suddenly pops back into their lives wanting to make amends. However, the real reason why he left the family is because he was hurting from his wife Elizabeth cheating on him with his brother John.
- Parental Substitute: John, the girls' uncle, became this to them in the wake of James' departure from the family. James is later revealed to be one for Vicky, who turns out to actually be John's daughter.
- Poor Communication Kills: After finding a pregnancy test device, Peter leaves the mansion in a huff, mistakenly assuming that Caroline got pregnant with another man, when in actuality it is Joanna who got pregnant.
- Really Gets Around: Vicky having no-strings-attached relationships with men.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Caroline and Vicky to each other. Caroline belittles Vicky for her irresponsible behavior while Vicky strikes back at Caroline over her obsession with making everything perfect on Christmas her own way.
- Sibling Rivalry: Joanna and Vicky strongly hate each other and often quarrel a lot.
- Toplessness from the Back: Joanna is naked in the shower, but only her bare back is seen.
- Ugly Guy, Hot Wife: Peter is the ugly guy to Caroline's hot wife.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Both John and Elizabeth (and surprisingly Vicky as lampshaded near the end) are guilty of this, since their affair is what caused James to leave the family on Christmas day in the first place, but since Elizabeth has been keeping them in the dark about this in fear that this would be a hard blow for them to bear,they grew bitter of James under the belief that he did this intentionally.
- Villainy-Free Villain: John is very obnoxious to his brother James, but it doesn't stop him from entirely meaning well for the Christmas family.
