Angela’s Christmas – Netflix Short Film Review

A Charming, Well Written Animated Short

Set in Ireland in 1910, Angela’s Christmas is a bite size short film about the power of family. Told through the eyes of little Angela, this heartwarming story depicts a girl’s desire to ensure her family and everyone around her is safe. This animated tale is well written for the most part, with an aesthetically pleasing visual design to accompany it.

With snow beginning to fall on the eve of Christmas, Angela and her family wrap up warm and head to the church for Mass. Ignoring her brother’s taunting, Angela finds herself fixated on the Baby Jesus. Intent on making sure Jesus is warm, after the service she sneaks the baby out of the church and takes him home to ensure a warm roof over his head. When her family catch wind of what’s happened, what follows is a journey that mixes humour with a lovely undertone of Christmas spirit, all wrapped up in a 30 minute run time.

With a lot of Christian symbology and set in a heavily Catholic area, Angela’s Christmas so easily could have fallen into the trap of feeling preachy or overly religious. Thankfully, the film manages to navigate that fine line perfectly, encapsulating the time period perfectly whilst remaining engaging and heartwarming throughout. The use of colour helps here too, blending the cold, unforgiving blues and greys with flickering orange lights and warm, inviting colours for the interior shots.

While elements of Angela’s Christmas may not resonate with a huge number of kids and a whole range of other animated offerings with longer run times manage to capture the Christmas spirit better, Angela’s Christmas is a fleeting but heartwarming tale nonetheless. Given its short run time, it is worth checking out and features a nice little ending to finish it off. It’s not perfect but it is another solid entry from Netflix who give a lovely animated stocking filler, ready for the Christmas period.