Movie Review :: Netflix’s Jingle Bell Heist

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If you need an antidote to the sweetness of the Hallmark holiday movies, Netflix may just have something a bit more gritty for you but … it still manages to give you a classic Hallmark movie ending.

Jingle Bell Heist stars Olivia Holt as young American Sophia and Connor Swindells as Brit lad Nick, and when we first meet them it appears they are about to commit some sort of crime. But how did these two unlikely partners-in-crime get to this point? Sophia works at high class London department store Sterling, and though she is American she gets one with just about everyone, even ingratiating herself to security guy Eddie, While an entitled customer berates one of the shopgirls, Sophia manages to slip the diamond-encrusted collar off of the woman’s dog, assuring Eddie that she can properly store the item in the store’s lost and found. While there she also slips a few pounds up her sleeve … and sees a locked area filled with very expensive jewelry, the sight of which causes her to stumble back, and accidentally knock out the security camera. She doesn’t know that Nick, who works in a phone repair shop, has tapped into the store’s security camera and saw her take the money and break the camera. He sends her a note to meet the next morning, and tells her what he saw, but he’s also erased the security footage from the store’s servers. Now he wants her to help him steal the jewels, which she refuses to do at first but her British mum is very sick in hospital — they moved back from the States to take advantage of the free health care — and the doctor has suggested that her mother’s illness could very well be reversed or cured or put into remission with new stem cell therapy … but the waiting list is extremely long and she does not have time to wait, so Sophia should consult a private practice which would require her to foot the bill for the treatment, pretty much the opposite of what they came to the UK for. Sophia has just one choice — join Nick and steal the jewels.

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They actually make a good team, on paper, because he knows how to get into all the tech to bypass cameras and the like, and her grandfather was a magician who taught her all of his sleight of hand tricks and misdirection so she could easily cause a distraction … which she does, and when she goes to the basement to liberate the jewels … they’re gone. So the mission is aborted and now Sophia has to figure out how to pay for her mother’s treatment, and Nick has to figure out how to get his life together and get his own apartment away from his slacker roomie so his ex will let him spend time with their daughter. Nick has a past as well, having worked for Sterling and then fired, arrested, tried and imprisoned for the theft of a lot of jewelry. And though he took a plea deal, Nick maintains that he did not steal anything from Sterling. The experience of nearly performing a heist has bonded Nick and Sophia, and she has her own story of despair about how her mother was having a fling with a wealthy man and got pregnant. When she brought Sophia to the man’s office, he denied she was his and demanded they both leave the premises. The feeling of not being wanted has haunted her all these years, and now she has to do what she can to keep her mother alive. After hearing Nick’s story about Sterling, they hatch a new plan after learning that Mr. Sterling keeps £500,000 in cash in a safe in his office. Certainly the next best thing, but he has a very special, very high tech safe and Nick can’t bypass the security without knowing what kind of safe it is. So Sophia poses as a rich Texan in town needing a safe like her friends the Sterlings and gets all the information she can from the company that provided the safe. Sounds easy enough now but there is another catch — the safe can only be opened with a randomly generated combination from a phone app that changes every minute. It can also has a fob that can be used in place of the phone app with the same randomly generated combination so … how will they get the fob? Turns out there is a high class soiree that Mr. and Mrs. Swindell will be attending, and it’s no secret the couple are living their separate lives, just appearing in public together and putting on happy faces when they need to. All they have to do now is get into the party, and get Nick to convince Cynthia Sterling that he’s just a random guy interested in having some fun with her in private. And she seems to fall for it, bringing Nick back to her lavish home. But … there may be more going on here than meets the eye as one twist after another makes the night a wild ride for everyone involved.

Jingle Bell Heist is a beautifully produced heist movie that just happens to be set at Christmastime. The holiday aspect really isn’t that important to the story, aside from giving Nick and Sophia a scene to crash a holiday party dressed as Santas so they can shut down a power grid so Nick can get past Sterling’s security … but it doesn’t work. Aside from that, the holiday setting just allows from some lovely and festive decorations inside and outside the department store. Director Michael Fimognari does a nice job of keep the whole story very low-key, with a very British vibe (though not enough to make it feel alien to American audiences), with a long stretch where not a lot happens but it never feels boring. Attribute that to the screenplay by Abby McDonald and Amy Reed, who have crafted two characters who are pretty average on the surface, but who have very compelling backstories that make you root for them to succeed one way or another. In addition to Nick and Sophia, Maxwell Sterling is written as the villain of the story, but he’s never over-the-top. He’s just a wealthy businessman who thinks he can treat people like dirt and get away with anything because of his name. Wife Cynthia is also compelling because she is presented just as a trophy wife to the public, but she has a lot more going on than anyone could imagine. All of the other supporting characters, from Sophia’s mum to her boss at her bar job, and Nick’s slacker friend, ex and daughter are all richly drawn characters who are believable and authentic. There is also a lovely scene with Nick and his daughter ice skating, and when he learns that she and her mom are moving far from London, it’s heartbreaking for Nick but it also allows him to resolve to do whatever he needs to do for his daughter. And when it comes down to it, he’s even willing to throw himself on his sword to protect Sophia as well since he already has a record and she needs to be there for her mother. These are all just really relatable characters dealing with real world issues, while being caught up in extraordinary circumstances. It’s all very well done.

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The casting, of course, is what helps make the characters breathe. Olivia Holt is wonderful as Sophia. She is completely down-to-earth, she is desperate to help her mother, her performance when given the news about the treatment is a gut-punch for the viewer, but she has to keep going about her day earning a living and if it involves a little petty larceny, so be it. Connor Swindell is also terrific as Nick, sort of a sad sack character, seemingly aimless in life, stuck in a situation in which most people, including his ex, believe he turned to a life of crime which has made it hard for him to get back on his feet. But when Nick looks at his daughter or has words with his ex about keeping her from him, you can feel the passion in Swindell’s performance. He also gets to be charmingly awkward when he’s trying to ‘seduce’ Cynthia, needing Sophia to be in his ear coaching him with what to say (a moment which goes hilariously wrong when Sophia is drawn into a conversation with Maxwell, Nick nonsensically repeating what she’s saying to him, confusing Cynthia in the process). Holt and Swindell also have great chemistry together, but make things ambiguous enough so that you don’t know if they will end up together in the end or go their separate ways.

Peter Serafinowicz plays the cad, Maxwell Sterling, to perfection. While often seen in more comedic roles, here he is dead serious, and through his performance we all root for his comeuppance. Lucy Punch is fantastic as Cynthia, making it clear there is no love for her husband, putting on the false happy face at public events (but turning that look to disgust once the cameras stop flashing), and bringing Nick back to her house where she drops a few bombs that totally flip the script. Punch has such an expressive face that whenever she is in a scene you just can’t take your eyes off of her. Michael Salami is the comic relief roommate, more interested in slagging off and playing video games all day, making us wonder if he’d even be able to survive on his own if Nick moved out. The entire cast is truly perfect in their roles, making their characters feel like real human beings you could walk past on the street without a second look (of course you would have to look at the more upscale Sterlings if they passed you). They all exist in a perfectly realized world, nothing is idealized, nothing is sanitized. It’s not a holiday movie for escapism, but it is a movie full of rich characters that we can invest in.

Jingle Bell Heist may not have needed the holiday setting, but it still feels Christmasy because of the wonderful production design and directorial touches, with characters who make us root for them to stick it to those who’ve wronged them and make off with whatever riches they can carry.

Jingle Bell Heist has a run time of 1 hour 36 minutes, and is streaming on Netflix.

Jingle Bell Heist | Official Trailer

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Listen to the Jingle Bell Heist (Soundtrack) by Steve Hackman featured in Jingle Bell Heist
 

 
Listen to the other songs featured in Jingle Bell Heist – Cheesin’s Greetings by Lil Cheesecake, Love is the Law by The Suburbs, (Please Don’t Leave On) Christmas Eve by Pony Boy, Who’s Up There (Christmastime) by Bhi Bhiman, O Christmas Tree by Danica Dora, This Christmas by Chauncey Jacks, Saltwater by Geowulf, Just Like Christmas by Low, Christmas in Hollis by Run-DMC and Keep It Up by Good Neighbours