It’s that time of the year when goats pay the ultimate price and there’s an increasing amount of red and green in every direction. That time when carols chime back with the same sweetness, and Christmas movies serenade our background noise between Christmas festivities. With the promise of communal love trumping whatever chaos family reunions bring out, African streamer Showmax, seeking to build its own slate of African Christmas films, releases its second Kenyan Christmas feature, A Merry X-Mess, with an even bigger suburban Kenyan family at each other’s necks.
The annual family choir competition is back after being banned for fifteen years for causing family rifts, and despite writings on the wall, Zawadi, the matriarch of the Nyati family, wants nothing more than to bring the trophy home. Calling all the shots, she tries to wean her family to care for the competition with very little success while dealing with the animosities that bubble to the surface when her family stay cooped up in the same vicinity for too long. With Zawadi’s oldest son enjoying the finer things in life to consider settling down, her only daughter grappling with her desire to come back home after settling abroad and the lastborn son and his yoga instructor wife less inclined to continue the lineage, the frigid widow has to shepherd her family, with the help and detriment of her more eccentric and combative rural sister.
A Merry X-Mess doesn’t offer anything new to the genre, with both the structure and plot reworking the same tropes and designs that have proven successful for the festive movie experience. And while it hints at showcasing a Kenyan Christmas in all its glory, the Christmas itself takes a backseat to the family drama for most of the movie. The goat slaughtering bleeds offscreen in another plotline, and even the preparation for the choir competition has to be content with two or so scenes. With a narrative that bridges itself to bring together a diaspora family under the same roof as a rural family, A Merry X-Mess manages to naturally weave in some great moments like Onyango with the ugali story and a little musical interlude with the children.
Featuring a star-studded ensemble of Melissa Kiplagat (Country Queen), Bruce Makau (Kina), Sheila Munyiva (Country Queen), Mufasa Kibet (Crime and Justice), Regina Re (Pieces of Us), Joel Kennedy Otukho (Country Queen) and Raymond Karago (Twende), the film plays it safe to stir chaos; it’s certain it could manage. This safety ensures the script by Damaris Irungu (Pepeta) can comfortably string together side stories for the kids, a romance sparkling scruffily, and the faulty unspoken divides within family dynamics with the surety everything will work out eventually. However, there are instances where this cautiousness enervates the characters, forcing them to act and react against their better judgments just to keep the tension and pump out a joke or two, but it guarantees the warmth and comfort the genre thrives in, especially with a runtime of one and a half hours.
From hanging out in matching pajamas to a trip to the national park to a secret ‘initiation’ ceremony in the forest, A Merry X-Mess flexes its depth within and without the confines of a single house, with an expansive set that allows all the meandering plotlines to bounce off each other without getting in the way of others, complemented with the subtle direction of Gilbert Lukalia. It keeps the feel of the season emoting in every scene. With limited moments to capture the audience, the few scenes the adult actors get between themselves are earnest and have just enough chemistry to make it work, though I have to say, the children, especially Mandela, couldn’t convince me he had the charisma to be a professional YouTuber.
The hesitancy to place A Merry X-Mess within the eyes of one character navigating around the family means this film is neither a Christmas child escapade nor a romance under the mistletoe nor the fight of a young couple against the matriarchy, but a limited version of all that wrapped into one. When the family eventually takes its place on the Christmas choir competition stage, the film can at least celebrate cultivating a general, slightly tipsy air of good feels that largely succeeds, thanks to the efforts of a jolly, well-meshed ensemble, some sparky banter amid the more sitcom-level dialogue, and a healthy side of Christmas carols to wrap it up, which proves enough.
A Merry X-Mess is now streaming on Showmax.
