Christmas Karma

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Not suitable under 11; parental guidance to 11 (scary scenes, violence, themes)

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This topic contains:

  • overall comments and recommendations
  • details of classification and consumer advice lines for Christmas Karma
  • a review of Christmas Karma completed by the Australian Council on Children and the Media (ACCM) on 2 December 2025.

Overall comments and recommendations

Children under 11 Not suitable due to scary scenes, violence and themes.
Children aged 11 Parental guidance recommended due to violence and themes.
Children aged 12 and over Ok for this age group.

About the movie

This section contains details about the movie, including its classification by the Australian Government Classification Board and the associated consumer advice lines. Other classification advice (OC) is provided where the Australian film classification is not available.

Name of movie: Christmas Karma
Classification: PG
Consumer advice lines: Mild themes, violence and coarse language
Length: 110 minutes

ACCM review

This review of the movie contains the following information:

A synopsis of the story

In this modern retelling of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, Eshaan Sood (Kunal Nayyar) is the new Scrooge. He is a miserable, mean and nasty character who has made a fortune in his business with his partner Marley, now deceased, but is unwilling to share it with anyone. After firing all of his staff on Christmas Eve for having a party in the office, apart from the faithful Bob Cratchit (Leo Suter), Sood is visited by the ghost of Marley (Hugh Bonneville). He tells Sood that three ghosts will visit him that night. The first is the ghost of Christmas Past, (Eva Longuria) a female member of a Mariachi band (representing the Day of the Dead) who takes Sood back to his childhood in Uganda.

As a young Indian boy, Sood and his family are thrown out of Uganda when Idi Amin evicts all Asians from the country. Sood and other Indian families who worked for the British Government, were evacuated to the UK. There, his family faced hostility and young Sood was beaten by thugs for his ethnicity. He grew up and met a young Indian girl, Bea (Charithra Chandran) whose father refused Sood’s offer of marriage as he had no money. Sood was determined to win his girl and worked hard and ruthlessly to earn his fortune. Bea’s parents were happy with Sood, but she was not and refused him. Thereafter, Sood became embittered and miserly.

The ghost of Christmas Present (Billy Porter) is a singer in a rap band, who shows Sood how poor Bob Cratchit and his family are spending Christmas. In particular, young Tim who, unbeknownst to Sood, has a fatal illness and is seen to be suffering in pain. The story continues in the well-known vein, which sees Sood convert to a much more humane person.

Themesinfo

Children and adolescents may react adversely at different ages to themes of crime, suicide, drug and alcohol dependence, death, serious illness, family breakdown, death or separation from a parent, animal distress or cruelty to animals, children as victims, natural disasters and racism. Occasionally reviews may also signal themes that some parents may simply wish to know about.

Racial Prejudice; Christmas; Refugees; Integration; Religious Tolerance; Terminal illness of a child.

Use of violenceinfo

Research shows that children are at risk of learning that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution when violence is glamourised, performed by an attractive hero, successful, has few real life consequences, is set in a comic context and / or is mostly perpetrated by male characters with female victims, or by one race against another.

Repeated exposure to violent content can reinforce the message that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution. Repeated exposure also increases the risks that children will become desensitised to the use of violence in real life or develop an exaggerated view about the prevalence and likelihood of violence in their own world.

There is some violence in this movie, including:

  • A drunk man is aggressive to Sood.
  • Mention of evacuees being beaten, robbed and killed on their way to the airport.
  • Protestors are seen shouting at the refugees and telling them they are not wanted.
  • A group of four thugs beat up young Sood because he’s Indian.
  • Sood gets angry with the Ghost of Christmas Past and tries to shake her.

Material that may scare or disturb children

Under fiveinfo

Children under five are most likely to be frightened by scary visual images, such as monsters, physical transformations.

In addition to the above-mentioned violent scenes, there are some scenes in this movie that could scare or disturb children under the age of five, including the following:

  • Marley appears with a blackened face, hollow eyes and covered in chains.
  • The Ghost of Christmas Past has beady eyes which she pops out at Sood to frighten him. She can light up her head and face to look like a video screen.

Aged five to eightinfo

Children aged five to eight will also be frightened by scary visual images and will also be disturbed by depictions of the death of a parent, a child abandoned or separated from parents, children or animals being hurt or threatened and / or natural disasters.

In addition to the above-mentioned violent scenes and scary visual images, there are some scenes in this movie that could scare or disturb children aged five to eight, including the following:

  • Sood sees a face appear in his front door.
  • Sood hears noises and heavy breathing, banging on his bedroom door, and a loud voice crying out: “Mr Sood”.
  • Marley is a tortured soul suffering in pain. He vanishes into thin air.
  • Sood’s childhood home (Uganda) is shown in real footage as impoverished and rundown.

Aged eight to thirteeninfo

Children aged eight to thirteen are most likely to be frightened by realistic threats and dangers, violence or threat of violence and / or stories in which children are hurt or threatened.

In addition to the above-mentioned violent scenes, there are some scenes in this movie that could scare or disturb children aged eight to thirteen, including the following:

  • Idi Amin is shown in real footage, ordering all non-nationals out of the country. It is later revealed that Amin killed many of his own people.
  • Sood’s father is shown lying on a hospital bed, having died of a heart attack.
  • Sood is shown his future where he dies of a heart attack. He sees his staff having a laugh about him. He attends his own funeral and watches his coffin going into the furnace and being consumed by flames.
  • In the future, Sood also sees the death of Tim Cratchit, shown lying on his bed. Tim’s father, Bob, cries over the body and the whole family watch in tears as the small coffin is carried out to the hearse.

Thirteen and overinfo

Children over the age of thirteen are most likely to be frightened by realistic physical harm or threats, molestation or sexual assault and / or threats from aliens or the occult.

  • Nothing further noted.

Product placement

  • None noted.

Sexual references

There are some sexual references in this movie, including:

  • A light romance between Sood and Bea.
  • A man says that it’s so cold he can’t keep his chestnuts warm and asks someone else to warm his baubles up for him.

Nudity and sexual activity

  • None noted.

Use of substances

There is some use of substances in this movie, including:

  • There is a lot of drinking of alcohol throughout the movie: at home, at parties, in the office, etc.
  • A man is seen so drunk, he throws up.

Coarse language

There is some coarse language in this movie, including:

  • For God’s sake
  • Blimey
  • Hell
  • Bloody
  • Crap
  • Name calling, such as:
    • Stupid fool
    • Tight-fisted stingy miser.

In a nutshell

Christmas Karma is a mixture of a Bollywood musical and a British dramedy, based on Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. The film has lots of positive messages about tolerance and welcoming refugees who are willing to adapt to their new surroundings as well as forgiveness and redemption. However, the ghost stories are quite scary, and there are some intense scenes concerning young Tim Cratchit, making it unsuitable for 10’s and under, and more suited to 12-year-olds, teens and adults.

The main messages from this movie are to try and understand where people are coming from; and to accept all people regardless of race.

Values in this movie that parents may wish to reinforce with their children include:

  • Tolerance
  • Forgiveness
  • Redemption
  • Empathy
  • Charity
  • Gratitude
  • Being non-judgemental
  • Allowing for religious differences while looking for their commonality.

This movie could also give parents the opportunity to discuss with their children attitudes and behaviours, and their real-life consequences, such as:

  • How Eshaan Sood became the miserable person he was and that when confronted by who he really was, he was able to make changes and redeem himself.
  • Being mean and miserly is unrewarding but being charitable can save someone’s life and provide happiness.