“Dear Santa” (2024) Review

What the hell is Dear Santa trying to be? My initial perception was that staging a Christmas comedy of a kid-oriented, deal-with-the-devil scenario was meant to be akin to Bad Santa. But while Bad Santa was admirable for never pulling back too hard on its cynical nature, this comedy pumps the brakes so hard you want to cover your ears as the sentimentality sends this fantastical comedy screeching to an agonizing halt.

This film has a good idea, but it lacks enough creativity or faith to carry it through. It centers around the unfortunate tween Liam (Robert Timothy Smith), who is down on his luck for being bullied at school, failing to ask out his crush, and having his parents on the verge of divorce. To make his wishes come true, Liam writes a letter to Santa about his problems. Unfortunately, Liam is also dyslexic, and he mistakenly addresses the letter to Satan instead of Santa. This mailing attracts the attention of Satan (Jack Black), trying to frame himself as Santa Claus and convince the wimpy Liam to sell his soul to hell in exchange for three wishes.

In the right hands, this could have been another Bad Santa, but it is closer to the misguided, youth wish-fulfillment of films like Kazaam and Blank Check. Those films tried and failed to explore the fun of what happens when kids are given unlimited access to their dreams coming true. The problem is that Liam is too good to be tempted by the devil. All of his wishes are for the benefit of others, ranging from his friend getting his teeth fixed to his parents getting back together. But, hold on, wouldn’t the devil push back on these goody-goody wishes? Not really. This is a PG-13 movie that seems to be aiming downward at the younger crowd, making Jack Black’s devil character more of a scheming dope than a presentation of evil to reject.

The film doesn’t work because there’s rarely a moment you feel that Liam has to grow. This leads to Black’s kneecapped devil taking the reigns for trying to entice Liam with greedier wishes. But his displays are so tedious in their facial nature. Case in point, Satan uses his devil magic to not only grant Liam backstage access to a Post Malone concert to impress a girl but hypnotize Post Malone to dedicate the concert in Liam’s honor and invite him out on stage to dance at his show. Not a single person seems to question this development and seems to believe Liam is that cool genuinely. Even the more grounded dark-arts magic is used for such tired gags as Liam’s teacher, Mr. Charles (P. J. Byrne), shitting himself so hard that the sound guys must have run out of all the fart sound effects they had on file.

I was bored with Dear Santa in its first two acts, but the final act is where there’s a last-minute attempt to evoke tears out of this picture. Liam’s feuding parents seem like they’re going through a lot, but the death of Liam’s brother is revealed as the primary cause stressed much later in the film. Even worse, the film wants you to feel a little bad for Satan by showing that he’s an impersonator with the most underwhelming and who-gives-a-fuck of twists. There’s no growth going on in any of this, and I never cared for the absurdity of the devil or the pluckiness of Liam. It’s all just a series of gags framed around this unorthodox relationship but presented in an annoying Goldilocks Zone of never being too sentimental or offensive, coming off more cowardly than either heartwarming or heart-mocking for the holidays.

Dear Santa is unbelievably timid and bereft of creativity because of its squandered premise. The film was directed by Bobby Farrelly, previously known for directing such daring and subversive comedies as Kingpin and There’s Something About Mary. Where is that same spirit of cynical comedy for this film? What’s the point of neutering the devil for a movie that still ended up being PG-13 and will most likely be dashed off the streaming radar of reactionary Christians? There’s no life in this comedy that gives up on the idea of a Satan-vs-kid dynamic and settles for Christmas junk that’ll be tossed aside as quickly as kids ditch socks from their Christmas present pile.