From the luxurious world of ballet to a snow-covered Tokyo, these are festive movies to get lost in over the holidays
The holiday period can often feel like a time of regression, with many of us migrating back to our parents’ homes and finding ourselves once again sequestered in our childhood bedrooms. Posters still on the wall, teddies still on the bed, a forgotten dream matte mousse or lynx deodorant still on the dresser – just like that, we’re teenagers again. The feeling is further heightened this year as we prepare to spend another Christmas hunkered down, keeping ourselves and others safe by minimising our social contact. But thankfully, if there’s one thing adolescents are experts at, it’s whiling away the hours waiting for life to begin.
To help you embrace your inner teen and find solace in daydreams, Girlhood Studies columnist Claire Marie Healy has put together a list of five alternative Christmas films for you to get lost in.
Metropolitan, 1990 (lead image)
CH: “The perfect holiday-in-the-city movie. A story about a lonely teenage girl among the New York’s most well-heeled adolescents, this film feels like taffeta folds, waltzing in the living room, and late-night drinking in front of the Yule log television show.”
Morvern Callar, 2002
Claire Healy: “You won’t see blinking, multicoloured Christmas tree lights in the same way ever again after the dark opening of this film, which is centred by a subversive supermarket stacker played by Samantha Morton.”
The Bling Ring, 2013
CH: “For the teen girl who wants everything, the blasé consumerism at the heart of Sofia’s underrated true crime spree drama is, I think, as festive as it comes.”
Tokyo Godfathers, 2003
CH: “A Tokyo-set, snow-covered story about the families you choose and the families you don’t, featuring a trio of homeless characters – including a runaway teenage girl – who save an abandoned baby on Christmas Day.”
The Red Shoes, 1948
CH: “Watching Moira Shearer dance her way through the luxuriously vivid music and saturated colour of this tragic drama set in the ballet world is a lush experience that should be repeated every Christmas.”