Film Review: Spirited – Apple TV+

Spirited is streaming now on Apple TV+.

Star rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ✩

This new Will Ferrell/Ryan Reynolds film is not the beloved 2003 Christmas classic Elf. It is very clear about that. In its many references and allusions, it almost apologises for it. It is, however, decidedly a musical. It apologises for this too, but there is no need. Spirited is a heck of a lot of fun.

Directed by Sean Anders and written by Anders and John Morris, Spirited is an updated telling of 1992’s The Muppet Christmas Carol, which was itself based on 1988’s Scrooged, which was based on 1946’s It’s a Wonderful Life, which I think is a Bible story or something. It’s a tale so over-adapted, one worries the only place left to go is snarky, self-referential, meta-comedy. At its worst, Spirited admittedly does slip into this. Fortunately, there is also $75,000,000 US of spectacle crammed into this delightful hodgepodge of a film to ensure not a single unentertaining second goes by.

Reynolds plays Clint Briggs, an unscrupulous PR mastermind with no qualms about the damage he is doing to society. Redemption of a man so awful would be a Christmas miracle, and so it becomes the obsession of Ferrell’s Ghost of Christmas Present – here part of an annual industrial operation to transform Earth’s wickedest people and maximise the resultant good ‘ripples’ each festive season. As Reynolds’ character proves tougher to crack than expected, antics ensue.

Many A-listers appearing in films purely for the truck-worth of money Apple TV+ dumps in front of their mansions might put in a half-hearted performance, but despite the silliness of this musical, everyone appears gamely committed. Ferrell attacks his ghostly role with all the energetic playfulness and charm for which he is known, while Reynolds proves himself a surprisingly natural song-and-dance man across the film’s many musical numbers. It is the supporting cast that really shines though, with excellent performances from the joyous Octavia Spencer as Reynolds’ co-worker Kimberley, Sunita Mani as a hilariously laidback ghost of Christmas past, and stage-favourite Patrick Page’s unforgettably authoritative bass voice given a powerful showcase as Jacob Marley – head of the miracle redemption operation.

The biggest appeal for many will be Benj Pasek and Justin Paul as executive producers and songwriters. This team has spent the last decade hoovering up stage and screen awards for their work on megahits like Dear Evan Hansen, La La Land and The Greatest Showman, and this new set of songs absolutely holds its own against those acclaimed soundtracks. Of course, it helps that a large part of Spirited’s enormous budget has been poured into making each musical number a visual spectacle of dancers, effects and cameras seemingly unconcerned by the rules of gravity, but the songs stand up well in isolation too.

Catchy opening number ‘That Christmas Morning Feelin’ sets the tone of the film perfectly. There is some dwelling on deeper themes of goodness and social responsibility in this A Christmas Carol adaptation, but more importantly, this film is so stuffed full of fun and spectacle that you will not be bored, even if you are not as drawn into the emotion of the narrative as you might be with more sentimental Christmas films. As alluded to previously, ‘The Story of Your Life’ gives Patrick Page a chance to do what he does better than anyone, and a similarly perfect showcase is ‘The View From Here’, in which Octavia Spencer brings layers upon layers of depth to her character in a few short verses.

The budget is obscene and the film is not high art, but judged purely on a its merits as a distracting Christmas comedy musical to be enjoyed on a hungover Sunday afternoon, Spirited delivers the goods. The songs are great, the tone is silly, and two hours of family time will be passed without having to resort to awkward conversations about your love life or career. It accomplishes what it sets out to slickly and without pretension or schmaltz. Sure, the CGI and autotune budgets alone could have funded a thousand new stage musicals or fed a good proportion of the world’s starving people, but on its own terms as a piece of light-hearted festive entertainment, Spirited is a riotous success.

Ian Bowkett