Now why isn’t this film called A Babe in a Manger? Mark my words, the moment I get asked to write punch-up for a seasonal movie there will be marked improvement across the titles.
So the local nativity is interrupted by the presence of an actual abandoned baby, placed in the manger during a powercut- but the show’s already pretty weird from the off. We’ve got a dog playing a donkey, a *checks note* witch, I think? There’s canned laughter which makes me wonder 1) what nativity is this funny and 2) where a church got a laugh track from. All this scene-setting and the surprise baby is probably the most actual Nativity thing to happen. Oh, and the NYPD storm the stage before the Virgin Mary whips out her Child Protection Services badge.
What follows is an incredibly eked-out Christmas Eve as CPS Mary (who is called Alison) and NYPD stage-raider Brock Clayton (we get it, you’re very manly) looking after baby Joy (yes, even man’s man Brock Clayton has time for childcare. A surprisingly progressive statement) and not trying very hard to track down her birth parents.
All we know is that “it’s possible this baby was found in a stolen car” which if you ask me sounds like this is a pretty cool rule-breaking baby. Is Joy short for Joyrider?
Sadly, no. This is not Baby Driver (though it would’ve been far more literal). On meeting Joy’s teenaged birth mother, Baby in a Manger nosedives into full-on Lifetime movie drama. All issues, no real plot progression. It puts this cool grand theft auto baby to shame.
Rating: Ho/HoHoHo
An [insert here] for Christmas! 