Nativity! (2009)

When I first saw this many years ago, my 7 year old self simply thought this film was just a standard Christmas film like all the other films my family would watch at Christmas time. But thank god my 7 year old self was wrong. It had charm, it was funny for both adults and children, it had enjoyable, original music which me and tons of people still enjoy. The story as well, I loved it. I still do. My 17 year old self can still watch this film and love it.In the film, we meet Paul Maddens, portrayed by Martin Freeman, who is a primary school teacher at a school in Coventry who surprisingly hates Christmas, due to the fact that his girlfriend left him for America. He is then chosen by the headmistress to direct the school's Nativity play. This, a new teaching assistant who has no experience in teaching assisting and a lie about a Hollywood studio coming to watch the play conjures an amazingly simplistic but charming story. Compared to it's various sequels, it is quite grounded with real life consequences which adds realism to it, which is seriously lacking in it's sequels. The only bad thing that I can say about it is that it's success made me watch 2 out of the 3 sequels, which are seriously bad. Cringy, unbelievably terrible films! Through all the drama an laughs, it all comes down to the final Nativity show or "Nativity the musical in 4D" as Mr Poppy puts it. As I've said before the original songs are so memorable and just good songs to listen to.

Debbie Isitt's inspiration for the film was so simple and unexpected. I loved it. Such a simple thing has spawned a lot of money for her indeed.

I would recommend it to everyone. One of the best Christmas films out there.