Sofia Coppola reteaming with Bill Murray after Lost in Translation for a Netflix funded good old fashioned Christmas holiday special with guest appearences by George Clooney, Chris Rock, Miley Cirus, Jason Schwartzman, Micheal Cerna, Phoenix, … sounds like it could be a lot of fun. Unfortunately it isn’t. This 56 minute special will disappoint the hell out of a lot of people.

A snow storm has hit New York shutting down the entire city, no subway, no planes, trains or automobiles. No one will be able to attend Bill Murray’s live T.V. show for Christmas eve he fears, a Hollywood agent is desperately trying to sign him, and then suddenly there is a power failure. A wedding party without guests, some hotel staff and a few stranded hotel guests, there’s nothing left for them to do than singing some Christmas songs.

I’m a big Bill Murray fan but his and the talent of a lot of other people are wasted on this Christmas special. The film looks messy, badly shot and edited, it’s like a Robert Altman style film done extremely badly. It looks like it was shot in a couple of days time. The offbeat way the Christmas songs were brought is definitely a positive point and I was extremely charmed by Maya Rudolph and Jenny Lewis, but again, what a mess.

Jan Bollen