That Christmas

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Short takes

Not suitable under 5; parental guidance to 8 (themes, scary scenes, mild coarse language, sexual references)

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This topic contains:

  • overall comments and recommendations
  • details of classification and consumer advice lines for That Christmas
  • a review of That Christmas completed by the Australian Council on Children and the Media (ACCM) on 10 December 2024.

Overall comments and recommendations

Children under 5 Not suitable due to themes, scary scenes, mild coarse language and sexual references.
Children aged 5–8 Parental guidance recommended due to themes, scary scenes, mild coarse language and sexual references.
Children aged 9 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: That Christmas
Classification: PG
Consumer advice lines: Mild animated violence, and crude humour
Length: 96 minutes

ACCM review

This review of the movie contains the following information:

A synopsis of the story

It is almost Christmas in the fictional English town of Wellington-on-Sea, where a heavy snowstorm has arrived. Danny (voice of Jack Wisniewski) struggles with sadness and loneliness, as his father cannot make it home due to the weather and his mother is stuck at work. Additionally, he can’t seem to get his crush Sam (voice of Zazie Hayhurst) to notice him! Meanwhile, Sam is worried that her naughty twin sister Charlie (voice of Sienna Sayer) won’t get any presents from Santa because of her bad behaviour. Finally, after a group of parents head off for a wedding, local rebel-girl Bernie (voice of India Brown) is left in charge of the other children. When the parents get stuck on the way home, Bernie plots to make this year’s Christmas more fun than ever before.

The parents finally make it home, however Bernie’s younger sister has gone missing! The whole town rallies together to search for her in the snow and she is found in a beach hut with some runaway turkeys! In the end, the town has a happy and memorable Christmas despite all the trials the blizzard brought on.

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.

Family separation; Death.

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:

  • Charlie writes a sign saying, “Santa gimme, or else.”
  • A woman has snow fall onto her and she says, “Help, I’ve been murdered!”

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:

  • School teacher Mrs Trapper may scare younger children due to her intimidating voice and presence.
  • A child flies across the stage during a nativity play, with viewers worried he may fall.
  • Danny is watching an extreme monster-truck show and a truck crashes upside down.
  • A boy is hit in the face by a door as it swings shut.
  • The children engage in a snow fight and children are hit in the face with snowballs.
  • Children may be frightened by Farmer Yirrell, due to his sleazy appearance and crooked teeth.

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:

  • Lightning strikes as Santa flies through the sky. Santa and his sleigh crash onto rooftops as they land to deliver presents to the town.
  • A van almost hits a pole due to the hazardous weather conditions. The van later flies off a bridge, landing upside down on cracking ice.

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:

  • Danny’s mum says, “If love was easy, your father wouldn’t have run off with his 25-year-old dental nurse”. This could be triggering for children of divorce.

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

The following products are displayed or used in this movie:

  • Shaun the Sheep.
  • WhatsApp.
  • Text bubbles and emojis are displayed, emulating a social media or messaging app.
  • Songs include: Levitating by Dua Lipa; Nessun Dorma by Giacomo Puccini; Christmas Lights by Coldplay.

Sexual references

There are some sexual references in this movie, including:

  • Santa slips and lands on his crotch on the top of a pointed roof.
  • Eggplants run across the stage during the nativity play.
  • Danny asks his mom if she had a ‘hot date’ because she was out late working.
  • Santa’s reindeer flirts with a reindeer Christmas decoration.
  • Santa’s reindeer says, “My unmentionables are turning into snowballs out here.”

Nudity and sexual activity

There is some nudity and sexual activity in this movie, including:

  • A bike rider’s bottom is in the face of the rider behind him.
  • Danny’s pants slip down, revealing his underpants.
  • Danny has a crush on Sam. At the end of the movie they hold hands.

Use of substances

  • None noted.

Coarse language

There is some coarse language in this movie, including:

  • “Death to Trapper’s terrible test.”
  • Holy flipping moly.
  • Flipping heck.
  • Damn it.
  • Moron.

In a nutshell

That Christmas is a heart-warming, animated Christmas movie, based on the books The Empty Stocking; Snow Day; and That Christmas by Richard Curtis. The film tackles some mature themes of family separation and death. Furthermore, some scenes may be too scary for younger audiences and there is mild coarse language and sexual references. Thus, this film is not suitable for children under 5 and parental guidance is recommended for children aged 5 to 8.

The main message from this movie is that love can be found both through family and community. The movie also emphasises the importance of empathy and seeing things from other people’s perspectives.

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

  • Family
  • Community
  • Love
  • Self-Discovery
  • Perseverance
  • Friendship.

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

  • The ethics of caged vs free range animals and of eating meat more generally.