Jingle Bell Heist (2025)

 Its time for Mooshy Fox...

One of a raft festive films that pop up on streaming platforms each year, Jingle Bell Heist is better than most offering something slightly different from the Crimbo romcom. The title may suggest some kind of elaborate seasonal operation yet the reality is a small film with just enough warmth and surprises to keep you interested. Plus it’s a film whose second half is better than it’s first.

The story revolves around the fictional London store Sterlings which seems to be based partly on Liberty. Here fussy people buy high end Xmas goods with a neediness that seems out of kilter with the time of year as well as the more commercial end of the market. The fictional must have toy this year is a fluffy animal called Mooshy Fox. I feel like I do want to know more about this creature - it’s lore, it’s origin but we don’t get it.  Is it a cartoon character? I’ve seen comments where people say it’s an unrealistic toy for the modern age but just yesterday I walked around a Christmas Fair full of stalls selling stuffed animal toys similar to Mooshy.

American Sophie works here; one of two jobs she juggles as well as visiting her hospitalised English mother. They moved back here to take advantage of the NHS but the treatment her mum needs is not going to be available in time so she will need to go private. Meanwhile Nick who has been in prison for a fraud he says he did not commit works in a shop repairing laptops using his background fitting security systems. After somewhat unfeasibly accessing the Sterlings security system - which he had previously helped install but which no one thought to remove is permissions from -  spots Sophie pocketing some cash. Sensing someone who can help him ge this own back on the people who set him up he persuades her to take part in a robbery so they can get enough money for her mother’s operation and his flat so he can stay near his daughter.

If all that sounds a tad contrived and awkward then it is. The story has to work hard to create the groundwork for these two unlikely accomplices yet does so with just enough of a sense of reality and charm to persuade the viewer to go with it. Many of the tropes of festive films are pleasingly absent and the plot holds a couple of significant surprises back to deploy nearer the end to excellent effect. Abby McDonald and Amy Reed’s script is more interested in the social issues surrounding the characters- NHS versus private care, the justice system, the power of rich individuals – than it is about creating a romantic chocolate box.

While Sophie does fit the MO of the standard Xmas romcom lead she has some depth and interesting values while Nick is quite ordinary but therein lies how the chemistry works. The film manages to have its Xmas cake and eat it. Even the handful of what we might call action scenes are staged with a degree of realism; the biggest laughs come inside the shop with fussy customers or later when the duo are trying to avoid some rather cumbersome security staff. I also like the fact that the ruses they use to gain access to various places are so impractical yet somehow work. Also there’s a development involving DNA that I wonder about- isn’t DNA supposed to be unique to one person?

The soundtrack has been assiduously to avoid the over familiar and director Michael Filmognari opt for less talky scenes that enable the main stars Olivia Holt and Connor Swindells to give natural performances with outwardly confident personalities hiding some pain beneath the surface.  Both actors keep is relatively down to earth; its let to Peter Serafinowicz and Lucy Punch as the Sterlings, both insufferably self absorbed, too provide the more extravagant performances you might expect in a Crimbo caper.

Crucially it all looks like a real Xmas rather than a Hollywood one, largely because it was filmed  during the season in December 2023 in London.  Despite the presence of two single adults, a kid and a sick relative there is no surging tear stained climax. However, the ending works well and you’ll be surprised how what seemed like a serious crime earlier is justified to some extent by what happens not that the message of the film is that in some cases stealing is ok. I feel as if Sophie’s sleight of hand actions and cheerful Robin Hood like persona could propel a separate film in itself; unwittingly perhaps the filmmakers have created a character too interesting for this film. And I demand a Mooshy Fox spin off!