After Laughter, Comes Tears: 20 Alternative Christmas Films

1. Morven Callar (Dir. Lynne Ramsay, 2002)

Alan Warner’s Morven Callar seemed like way too perfect a book to fuck with, unless of course you are Lynne Ramsay. In this stunning exploration of the emotional interior, supermarket clerk Morven deals with grief and transformative melancholy after the death of her lover on Christmas Day. Filled with wee epiphanies, rituals, rites of passage and the things wee all need to do to let go: Ramsay takes us from the arse end of Scotland to the eccied lattitudes of Ibiza - a cathartic journey indeed. Not to mention probably the best movie soundtrack (via the folks at Warp, ofc) of all time!

2. This is England ‘88 (Dir. Shane Meadows, 2011)

I’ve written so much about This is England and Shane Meadows in the past in any rag that’ll have me or chewed the ear of any poor after party straggler whose eye balls aren’t completely doing a 180, that I’ll keep it brief. But This Is England 83-90 is perfection and ‘88 set over the 3 days of Christmas is the most beautiful, haunting and funny piece of film/TV ever made. Or: as Robert Murphy argues in the conclusion of his article ‘After Laughter Comes Tears: Passion and Redemption in This Is England ’88 “if Shane Meadows looked more like an intellectual and didn’t come from Uttoxeter, we might be comparing him to Carl Dreyer and Ingmar Bergman”

3. About A Boy (Dir. Chris Weitz, 2002)

No Man Is An Island!

The defining millennium romantic comedy captured the milieu of the strange noughties phenomenon: the metrosexual Audi-TT driving & extremly well-groomed ‘cool’ single male. With an incredible OST from Badly Drawn Boy & fucking hell that legendary opening!

4. Comfort and Joy (Dir. Bill Forsyth, 1984)

Bill Forsyth, my man! Quirky comedy in which a Scottish DJ grappling with personal problems is landed with a whole lot more when he becomes involved in a bitter, territorial feud between two rival families of ice cream sellers.

5. Affliction (Dir. Paul Schrader, 1997)

Paul Schrader goes in hard in this adaptation of Russell Banks literary masterpiece. A snowy neo-noir-cum-family-drama: Wade is a small-town cop with a tainted career and a troubled personal life. He gets obsessed with proving that an accidental hunting death is a murder so that he can turn his life around. Willam Defoe does bits here, but Jesus H, Nick Notle - take a bow son. What a performance.

6. Wonderland (Dir. Michael Winterbottom, 1999)

A lost masterpiece of British Cinema: An intimate portrait of three generations of one family during a weekend in London. As boisterous Bonfire Night celebrations are held in the chilly November weather, the family members and those closest to them find their paths intersecting and their ties evolving. Top 5 films of all time material.

7. Interiors (Dir. Woody Allen, 1978)

Woody Allen’s darkest joint - this Bergmanesque jam is a stunning chamber piece about the collapse of the family unit aplomb with clinical depression, suicidal ideation and addiction - this is a festive romp for the thick skinned.

8. Gasman (Dir. Lynne Ramsay, 1998)

Another one by Ramsay, when she was cutting her teeth making short films (which would prove to be some of the best short films ever made). Ramsay’s low plane emotional reality and sensory realism of the child is stunningly reified on-screen in Gasman - a film about families and siblings a we dinnae know - just a stone through away.

9. Mona Lisa (Dir. Neil Jordan, 1986)

Neil Jordan’s British neo-noir is a lavish tour of a lost London: the geezer himself Ray Winston as an ex-con turned driver, who, in his jaunty peregrination through iniquity falls hook-line-and-sinker for headstrong harlot played by the legendary Cathy Tyson. A dreamscape of primary colours with a score to boot, this is essential xmas fodder.

10. In Bruges (Dir. Martin McDonagh, 2008)

No point in beating around the bush - you know the script people. A four to the floor, freewheeling slice of cult cinema. Hilarious, profound and down right everything in between. Martin McDonagh, take a bow son!

11. It’s Only An Excuse (Dir. Philip Differ, 1993-)

Gone are the heady days where us Scotts would get that side-splitting one-two punch of Chewin’ the Fat & Only an Excuse tuned wired straight into the box in the peak hours of Hogmany. But we still have Only an Excuse, spurning patter for us folks since 1993. And for that we should be thankful!

12. The Sweet Hereafter (Dir. Atom Egoyan, 1997)

Another Russell Banks novel adaptation, this time by the masterful Atom Egoyan. When a schoolbus full of the village children tragically drown - who, if anyone, is to blame? And how can a community ever find redemption in the aftermath of nightmare unmasked? A Masterpiece!!

13. Brazil (Dir. Terry Gilliam, 1985)

Central Services you do the work, we do the pleasure!

A beautiful Orwellian Christmas nightmare hatched straight from the lizard mind of one Terry Gilliam.

14. Bitter Moon (Dir. Roman Polanski, 1992)

Not exactly a Christmas flick, but the leading man is Hugh Grant so it most definitely is. Pour yourself a Baileys and get on this slept on slice of Polanski erotica.

15. The Brand New Testament (Dir. Jaco Von Dormael, 2016)

God exists! & he’s a bit gouched, chilling hard in Belgium torturing folks via some hardware. Fed up with her auld man (G.O.D), being well, a bit of a dick, his daughter escapes into the real world and a new testament begins. Good bit of European artsy kitsch this.

16. Jesus of Montreal (Dir. Denys Arcand, 1990)

Canadian… (obviously), comedy-drama switch up, where a group of stage actors put on a play about the Passion of the Christ and ensue the wrath of the Catholic Church - of course. Best thing to come out of Canada before the 2010s Vancouver house music revival.

17. The Unloved (Dir. Samantha Morton, 2009)

Samantha Morton makes another app, this time behind the camera in her directorial debut The Unloved. A TV movie that is partly autobiographical, based on her own upbringing, it explores the unsavoury and grim realities of being a young pup in the British Care System… feat killer cast & score!

18. Winter’s Bone (Dir. Debra Granik, 2002)

Hard boiler Ozarkian noir - part folk, part southern gothic, part crime thriller. This is the real McCoy and a perfect adaption of the novel. Feat a break out perforamance from Jennifer Lawerence.

19. Eye’s Wide Shut (Dir. Stanley Kubrick, 1999)

Dark, desire laden dunt of Kubrickan martial breakdown via a paranoid odyssey of NYC high society. Mask up and slink into something not so comfortable.

20. Carol (Dir. Todd Haynes, 2015)

You can taste the Christmas chromatics and in Todd Haynes green-tinted-department-store movie: a story of longing and the melancholia of prohibited love, Haynes puts in a turn in this Patricia Highsmith adaptation.