At least you can’t accuse this holiday film of being generic. Combining the incredibly incompatible elements of drug busts and figure skating (and still failing to justify this crazy idea, though not for a lack of trying), Dealing with Christmas eventually begins to feel more like a series of comedy sketches making up the rules as it goes along. This definitely leads to moments of both excitement and effective humor, but its lack of consistency ultimately makes the awkward outweigh the good. Still, the audacity on display is something to be admired, and the film is just well-made enough to keep its constant experiments worth the curiosity.
On Christmas Eve, Greg, a solitary and taciturn police officer, doesn't hesitate to leave his daughter behind to go on a mission. To teach him a lesson, Santa Claus decides to grant his daughter's wish: that her father looks like Richard Silestone, the good-natured and heavily indebted family man from the beloved Christmas movie she adores. While Greg is sent into this improbable world, Richard accidentally lands in the real world and both men realize they have no choice but to complete each other's missions to reclaim their respective lives.
A no-nonsense cop finds himself switching bodies with a bumbling character from a Christmas movie, and each man tries to help solve the other's problems.
Dealing with Christmas tells two parallel stories that one hopes would be balanced evenly, but the film clearly favors the idea of the hapless Christmas movie character (played by an unrecognizable Eric Judor) getting caught up in an action thriller plot. These sections feel much more inspired and unpredictable compared to the scenes where the cop (played by Matthias Quiviger, also known as Ragnar Le Breton) deals with a quaint, fictional community. The sheer contrast between the two storylines is definitely part of the point, but the fact that they never really get tied together in a more clever way feels like a missed opportunity.
Finally, something to watch on Christmas while you're high.
