According to Screencraft, there are six essential elements to a Christmas film: nostalgia, magic, family, atmosphere, hope, and redemption. These can all be easily applied to festive classics we know and love, such as the iconic It’s a Wonderful Life (1946), the joyous Elf (2003), and the British household staple Nativity! (2009).

Even so, there has been debate upon debate about whether certain films can be entered into the yuletide Hall of Fame, the most prominent of these being Die Hard (1988). One film that should be considered but seems to fly under the radar is Steven Spielberg’s 2002 crime caper and comedy-drama Catch Me If You Can.

Released on Christmas Day, the film is based on the true story of how teenager Frank Abagnale Jr. (Leonardo DiCaprio) successfully pulled off confidence schemes worth millions of dollars by impersonating a pilot, a doctor and a lawyer, all whilst evading the clutches of FBI agent Carl Hanratty (Tom Hanks).

Doesn’t sound very Christmassy, right? Wrong!

Spielberg’s caper immediately establishes the film’s sense of nostalgia through its period setting of the 1960s. We are transported back in time to when banks didn’t have high-tech security, Pan Am was the kingpin of American air travel, and Frank’s ugly orange knitted vest was considered fashionable. These are all nostalgic for the people who grew up in and around the 1960s, and that group would have been the target audience for this film back in 2002.

The film’s sense of nostalgia still holds up today. There is a scene in which Frank, in the midst of his pilot con, goes to the cinema to watch the iconic James Bond film of the era Dr. No (1962), then it cuts to him having a suit measured. What name does he give the tailor? Ian Fleming, the author of James Bond.

In a way, it’s magic. Which is, of course, a key ingredient of a Christmas film.

Whilst the magic isn’t depicted in the stereotypical manner of wizards and fairy dust, Frank is represented as an immoral magician, right from the moment he steps into his classroom in a new school and hoodwinks his class into thinking he is the substitute teacher. We buy into the grand scale of Frank’s ongoing mastery of disguise and sleight of hand, and it makes for entertaining viewing even if certain elements of the true story have been widely disputed.

As with most Spielberg films, one of the central themes is a broken home and the effects it has on the children involved. If anything screams “Christmas film” it’s the idea of family and themes of reconciliation and repairing broken relationships.

We are introduced to the tight-knit Abagnale family, with Frank Sr. (Christopher Walken) receiving an award as his wife Paula (Nathalie Baye) and son Frank watch on in admiration. We then cut to a scene in which Frank watches his parents dancing by the family Christmas tree, as Frank Sr. recounts the story of how he and Paula met. From here, the idyllic family life takes a turn when Frank Sr.’s tax problems and Paula’s affair ultimately lead to their divorce. Upon being forced to choose which parent to live with, Frank rebels by running away from upstate New York to the City, thus kickstarting his career as a high-stakes con artist.

Throughout the film, we see Frank meeting up with his father, hoping that the money he has made will convince his parents to reconcile and make their living situation go back to the way it was. Frank Sr. resists this idea, having moved on and accepted what happened. This upsets Frank, who plunges deeper and deeper into his scams.

The film’s heartbreaking climactic moment comes years later, as Carl tells Frank that his father has died whilst they are flying back to the US. Distraught, Frank escapes the plane and finds the house of his mother, who has a new family. This prompts Frank to finally stop running and to surrender to Carl and the FBI.

In the climax, Frank sees his mother’s new family on Christmas Day, where there are fairy lights and a tree just like the one in the start of film. He looks on through the window, excluded from the life he used to have and desperately longed to have back. The beautiful tones of Nat King Cole’s “The Christmas Song” underpin the emotional weight of the scene, with the warmth of the classic song heavily contrasting Frank being left out in the cold.

Christmas Eve itself is a recurring motif throughout the film. Frank calls Carl to provoke him to send a team to chase him and apologise for their last encounter. Carl sees through this, realising that Frank has nobody to talk to. A few years later, Frank calls Carl on that day to tell him that he wants a truce, as he is getting married. Carl declines, saying that he will be caught and put in prison. Their final interaction on this day comes when Carl tracks Frank down to Montrichard, where his father met his mother on Christmas Eve. Frank is subsequently arrested by French police.

Hope is another seasonally relevant key theme throughout Catch Me If You Can, as Frank’s schemes are based upon his hope that the rewards will prompt his parents to get back together. The naivety of this notion makes the film’s climax all that more heartbreaking. Leonardo DiCaprio’s performance in this regard is phenomenal, as he is able to shape-shift from a cocky kid playing the part of an adult into an anxious young boy going through a traumatic change in his life when he is on the brink of adulthood. It is certainly a gamble to cast a 32 year-old as a 16 year-old, but it paid off. Spielberg is able to utilise the actor’s talents to convey this loss of childlike hope over time, presenting a type of coming-of-age we often see in Christmas films like Elf and Meet Me In St. Louis.

At the end of the film, after Frank is sentenced to 12 years in prison, Carl offers him an opportunity for redemption, as he realises that Frank’s conning skills can be utilised to help the FBI detect fraud. Frank accepts serving the rest of his sentence by working at the FBI, but finds that an office job is incredibly tedious. Frank prepares to impersonate a pilot one last time, but Carl finds him in the airport, saying nobody is chasing him. He tries to question Carl about his family, as Carl reveals that he is the father in a broken home, with a daughter not much younger than Frank himself. At that moment, we think Frank is going to go through with the con, but he appears back at the FBI and the film ends with him and Carl discussing one of the cons in great depth. This is a bright, feel-good ending reminiscent of any number of great Christmas films, and one that arguably ties their father-son-like relationship together, revealing to us a found family staple of a deeply unconventional nature but a wholly Christmas one nonetheless.

Written by Grace Laidler

Follow Grace Laidler on Twitter: @gracewillhuntin

Some of the most famous movie scenes of all time feature originally composed music or lift pieces from older films and recontextualise them for a modern audience, such as Tarantino pinching all of Ennio Morricone’s back catalogue. But what happens when you abandon this approach in favour of utilising a soundtrack of pre-released popular songs? It’s an idea that has been utilised as a directorial trademark by the likes of Quentin Tarantino and Edgar Wright, but it is widely acknowledged to have been popularised in western cinema by Easy Rider (1969) and specifically the films of Martin Scorsese. The latter has many a trademarked needle drop in his repertoire, but his use of soundtrack was arguably at its height in his 1990 gangster thriller Goodfellas.

In Goodfellas, the meticulously chosen selection of 50s to 70s music plays a huge hand in creating the memorable moments that have stayed with us (and reached new audiences) across the past thirty-plus years. In an interview with Esquire, the film’s music editor Chris Brooks claimed that Scorsese “[…] knew every one of those songs two years before he shot a frame of film.” It clearly paid off…

Although primarily told in chronological order, Goodfellas opens in media res, with the three central protagonists – Henry Hill (Ray Liotta), Jimmy Conway (Robert De Niro) and Tommy DeVito (Joe Pesci) – driving to dispose of a body in 1970. During the sequence, they realise the man is not dead, so they brutally murder him. After the job is done, Henry delivers the legendary opening line of “as far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster” and slams the car boot down. This is where we hear the first needle-drop: the late, great Tony Bennett’s “Rags to Riches”.

The lively brass selection that creates the opening of the song submerges us into the glamorous lifestyle of the gangster, allowing us to gaze with Henry’s childlike wonder at these powerful mobsters, making us forget about the brutality we just witnessed in the opening scene. As we are transported back to 1953, the lyrics of the song, coupled with the richness of Bennett’s voice, establish the running theme of the film: the ascent to, and descent from, power.

Through the use of doo-wop and crooner tunes popularised in the 1950s, we see Henry’s journey from a bullied neighbourhood kid into a fully-fledged mob associate.

Despite the flashy violence often seen in his films, Scorsese is an auteur renowned for authenticity, whether that be capturing Tibetan spiritual leaders, Gilded Age high society or Jesus Christ himself. When it came to Goodfellas, Henry’s upbringing mirrored Scorsese’s own in 1950s Italian-American neighbourhoods in New York. Therefore, the sequences of Henry’s childhood were soundtracked to Italian-language songs, reflecting the tradition and values set by the mobsters that Scorsese himself would have encountered.

The jump-cut to adult Henry takes us to 1967, significant in both the film’s timeline and the progression of music. In the 60s, music producer Phil Spector pioneered what is known as the Wall of Sound technique, where he would utilise studio recordings to make rich, orchestral tones that were designed to be played on jukeboxes and radios. With that, Spector used his formula to popularise several girl groups, including The Crystals.

In Goodfellas, Henry has seamlessly adjusted into his glamorous gangster lifestyle and his new challenge is his relationship with Karen Friedman (Lorraine Bracco). Whilst he was originally disinterested in her, her fiery attitude and “great eyes like Liz Taylor’s” prompted him to take her on a date to the notable Copacabana club. To emphasise his importance in the mafia world, Henry takes Karen through the back door of the club and through the kitchens before the waiter miraculously produces a table out of thin air for them to sit right next to the stage. This sequence is shot in an unbroken long take and accompanied by The Crystals’ “Then He Kissed Me”. It is a sweet and romantic song, where context reflects that both the music and Henry are in a new stage of life.

This new stage of life culminates with Henry and Karen’s wedding montage, as The Harptones’ dreamy “Life is But a Dream” plays throughout. The Harptones were a fairly unsuccessful group, never breaking into the top forty, but their song is the perfect choice for how Henry and Karen’s lifestyle was too good to be true.

From this point, we rattle through Henry’s day-to-day mobster business, reflected through the use of more of the same doo-wop, adult standard tunes. Significant hits being Dean Martin’s “Ain’t That a Kick in the Head” (a song originally written to be in the 1960 version of Ocean’s 11) and Queen of Soul Aretha Franklin’s “Baby I Love You”. Even when Henry and his associates are arrested, the breeziness of prison life for a gangster is reflected by “Beyond the Sea” by Bobby Darin. The singer’s voice is as cool as you like.

When Henry takes a turn for the worse, however, the soundtrack keeps up with him. During his time in prison, Henry becomes mixed up in the drug trade. We see him snorting cocaine with his new girlfriend Sandy at her apartment, soundtracked by the Scorsese Staple “Gimme Shelter” by The Rolling Stones. Used again in his films Casino and The Departed (twice in the latter), the brutal anti-war ballad is a stark contrast to the easy-listening previously heard within Goodfellas, signifying how Henry has strayed from his original path of gangster to dealer.

What was there from the 60s and 70s still remains, but only just. Christmas tunes from Spector’s acts The Ronettes and Darlene Love play when the mafia are celebrating their Lufthansa heist victory. However, the joy is short lived for all three protagonists: Tommy is murdered to the sound of the piano exit from Derek and the Dominoes’ “Layla”, and Jimmy silently decides to murder all of his crew to the sound of Cream’s “Sunshine of Your Love”. These iconic rock songs accompany pivotal and iconic scenes in the film, and all incidentally feature Eric Clapton, whose career spanned from the 60s and into the 70s. When filming, Scorsese played “Layla” on-set to synchronise the staging, blocking and camera movement with the instrumentals.

The climax of the film sees us hurtling into the 80s, as Henry has the day from Hell trying to juggle his family life, gangster life and drug-dealing life, until it all blows up in his face. The sequences from the chaotic day are amplified in tension by the use of high-octane songs from rock legends Harry Nilsson, The Rolling Stones, The Who, George Harrison, and Muddy Waters. The glamour is gone, Henry’s life is over; rock n’ roll is here to stay.

And so, that leaves us with the final song. The last shot sees Henry living as a ‘schnook’. Stuck in witness protection to save his own skin, Henry laments that everything he worked for was for nothing and that he is confined to living a boring, meaningless existence. Scorsese chooses to close the film with Sid Vicious’ cover of Frank Sinatra’s “My Way”. This is a spectacular song choice to end the film with as it is an imitation of a legendary crooner song associated with glamour and elegance, performed by an artist known for his notoriety and vulgarity. In the end, Henry becomes Sid Vicious, the outcast, desperately longing for the glamour that Frank Sinatra had.

The Goodfellas soundtrack is one for the ages. It illustrated how Martin Scorsese’s careful crafting of a soundtrack comprised of pre-released songs can elevate plot points, convey narrative changes, reinforce or signal developments to themes, and add a great deal of authenticity to a film’s world.

Alexa, play “Gimme Shelter”.

Written by Grace Laidler

Follow Grace Laidler on Twitter: @gracewillhuntin

The Bling Ring (2013)
Director: Sofia Coppola
Screenwriters: Sofia Coppola, Nancy Jo Sales
Starring: Katie Chang, Israel Broussard, Emma Watson, Claire Julien, Taissa Farmiga, Georgia Rock, Leslie Mann

Ten years on from its initial release, the social media landscape depicted in Sofia Coppola’s satirical thriller The Bling Ring (2013) has changed significantly. The film’s sentiments towards celebrity culture and our collective need for external validation have, however, held up, making The Bling Ring a timely pre-cursor to the world we live in now, and a continually relevant film.

Set in Calabasas, California, The Bling Ring follows five teenagers as they burglarise multiple celebrity homes, including those of at-the-time A-Listers Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan. It was based on the true story of the ‘Bling Ring’ robberies that inspired the article “The Suspects Wore Louboutins.” The article is referenced directly by Coppola’s film, with Israel Broussard’s Marc and Emma Watson’s Nikki being interviewed throughout in accordance to journalist Nancy Jo Sales’ original work.

From the opening line, “let’s go shopping”, we are immersed into the teens’ fame-obsessed ambitions as they treat the wardrobes of celebrity homes like all-you-can-eat buffets, flagrantly disrespecting the possessions of celebrities in the callous way that only teenage rebelliousness can inspire. It is interesting to note that these teens are incredibly affluent themselves, so their motivation for these robberies comes in the form of the prestige of the celebrity name, rather than the product itself. They could probably afford luxuries from the top designer brands, but it doesn’t matter unless a celebrity has endorsed it. The most illuminating example of this is when the teens rob Lindsay Lohan’s house – Coppola uses a slowed down long take of Rebecca (Katie Chang) trying on her idol’s perfume. It’s not the perfume itself, it’s the fact that it’s Lindsay Lohan’s that makes it so special to her.

And this is still true nowadays, but on an even larger scale. We now look to ‘influencers’ on social media, who peddle all sorts of products ranging from tummy teas to hair extensions. A Zara jacket is just a Zara jacket until Molly Mae wears it.

Although it is one thing to be wearing a celebrity’s clothes, it really doesn’t matter unless it has been photographed and shared for the world to see. The film is populated with shots of the teens taking photos of each other with flash flip phone cameras. A notable example of this is Marc taking a photo of Rebecca as she lies on Paris Hilton’s bed, documenting her trespassing like it’s a trip to Madame Tussauds. The excessive showing off of their crimes is what ultimately leads to their downfall, as the police are able to identify the perpetrators and the stolen goods through the photographs they share to social media.

Whilst Facebook albums might be out in 2023, Instagram dumps are in, and everyone is in competition with each other to prove who is partying the most or having the most ‘aesthetically-pleasing’ month. This competition for likes and for followers makes us needy for external validation. Whilst this isn’t a prison sentence, it does lead us to having a poor sense of self and has been acknowledged as a contributing factor or cause to many a person’s mental health struggles.

This concept is primarily explored by Sofia Coppola through the character Marc (Broussard), who discusses his struggles with his self-image in his interview early on in the film. A turning point comes in a rather amusing scene in which Marc records himself on his laptop, smoking a joint and lip-syncing to “Drop it Low” – a moment notably not too far from the lip-syncing popularised on TikTok over recent years. This is the first time we see Marc genuinely happy on his own, viewing himself with admiration through the laptop’s low-quality gaze. It is a very early example in cinema of how social media can inflate our sense of self and gift us external validation. It was only the celebrities that got photographed and had coveted lifestyles prior to the era The Bling Ring depicts, now it can be anyone.

It would be unjust to write about this film without mentioning the unbelievably brilliant soundtrack. Opening with the screeching guitars of Sleigh Bells’ “Crown on the Ground” and closing with Frank Ocean’s masterful “Super Rich Kids”, the film is jam-packed with songs from the 2013 party scene, with the most notable being “212” by Azealia Banks, which features Emma Watson dancing like a maniac.

The increasing intensities of the musical choices mirrors the spiralling decline into notoriety the ring endure. At the peak of their crimes, there is a slow-motion wide shot of the teens strutting down a street lined with clothing stores top-to-toe in their stolen goods, as Kanye West’s “POWER” blasts. We are encouraged to mock their attempts at being ‘iconic’. The transparency of this scene encapsulates The Bling Ring’s core thematic exploration of the lengths people will go to in order to feel special, like a celebrity, even if it is all fake.

Whilst the film certainly doesn’t condone the robberies, it does take a critical stance regarding how excessive celebrity lifestyles are. As Nikki points out, ‘why does she need two [dresses]?’ This is a part of the very current issue surrounding the redistribution of wealth, and ensures an unfortunate timely relevance to this decade-old feature. Ultimately, we still feel no sympathy or alignment towards the Bling Ring, as their motivations are purely self-serving regarding their thirst for fame – it gets to the point where Marc has to ask Rebecca if she’d ever rob him; she says no, but somehow we don’t quite believe her.

Disappointingly, the themes and commentary surrounding The Bling Ring are more interesting than the film itself, with much of Coppola’s offering becoming repetitive – the club scenes are particularly egregious (clothes, photos, dancing, coke – we get it).

The Bling Ring is, overall, a tight 86-minute film with a killer soundtrack, thrilling pacing and darkly funny one liners delivered by a great leading cast. Ten years removed from its release, this contemporarily relevant film is still worth a watch, even if it is just to read the commentary surrounding it. The Bling Ring is a time capsule and yet still unbelievably relevant.

Score: 18/24

Recommended for you: Sofia Coppola Movies Ranked

Written by Grace Laidler

Follow Grace Laidler on Twitter: @gracewillhuntin

Air (2023)
Director: Ben Affleck
Screenwriter: Alex Convery
Starring: Matt Damon, Jason Bateman, Chris Tucker, Chris Messina, Marlon Wayans, Matthew Maher, Ben Affleck, Viola Davis

Ben Affleck returns to the director’s chair for the first time in six years to turn what could be a dry boardroom drama into a thrilling, feel-good piece about the creation of the Air Jordan brand at Nike. The film, written by debut screenwriter Alex Convery, is centred around the struggling Nike Basketball division in 1984, focusing on the efforts of talent scout Sonny Vaccaro (Matt Damon) as he hatches a ballsy plan to recruit up-and-coming star player Michael Jordan (Damian Delano Young).

Air plunges us into 1984: a montage of archival footage from the year accompanied with a sound bridge of Dire Straits’ electrifying ‘Money for Nothing’, several cutaway sequences to various memorabilia of the decade such as retro cereals and fax machines, a nostalgic foot-tapping soundtrack that illuminates the experience. Some of this works really well, such as a euphoric use of Cyndi Lauper’s “Time After Time” and an emotional pay-off that comes in the form of Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the USA”. But some is clumsy and tonally jarring. At times, it can feel like the nostalgia factor is forced to maintain the film’s feel-good tone, in order to keep us entertained during dialogue-heavy business meetings. This echoes the current trend of 80s nostalgia in both film and television, with ‘Stranger Things’ in 2016 being the catalyst. It is a formula that has started to grow rather stale.

On the surface, a film about executives at a sportswear brand may appear to be essentially a two-hour business meeting, but Air utilises all of the more exciting conventions of the typical sports film. At its core, this is an underdog story in which Nike Basketball are the underdogs of the sportswear game. They are underfunded (in a company worth over one billion dollars) and a laughing stock compared to the more successful divisions of rival brands Adidas and Converse. Their ‘team’ comprises of the gutsy Vaccaro, the sensitive Rob Strasser (Jason Bateman), the eccentric Pete Moore (Matthew Maher), and the comedic Howard White (Chris Tucker). They are ‘managed’ by the spiritual Nike CEO Philip Knight, who is played by Ben Affleck himself. This mix of personalities, elevated by Alex Convery’s dynamic script and a stellar ensemble of supporting actors, creates a team that we can root for, even though they are playing the ruthless game of big business.

The focus on the business side of sport draws comparisons to other crowd-pleasers such as Bennett Miller’s Moneyball (2011) and Cameron Crowe’s Jerry Maguire (1996). Both of these films centre around a sports person in a managerial role – coach and agent, respectively – and their relationships with the sports people they are involved with. Although the same premise can be applied to Air, Affleck’s direction takes a different, rather polarising approach. In both Moneyball and Jerry Maguire, the athletes are characters with their own agency within the narrative. In Air, the fictional Michael Jordan’s face is never revealed to us, Affleck instead using archival footage of the real Jordan and his achievements to create this revered character within the film.

Air isn’t a biopic about Michael Jordan, it’s a biopic about the jumpman silhouette that is stitched into every single pair of the Air Jordan shoes that Jordan and Nike made famous. It is a tale of how design, marketing and business go hand-in-hand to help transform a relatively unknown basketball prospect into an American icon.

The anchor of Air is its screenplay, as Convery’s work is well-paced and tight, making the film feel like a chapter in a miniseries about Jordan’s career and legacy. Despite featuring lots of business and sports-related jargon, the plot is straightforward enough to be enjoyed by a wide audience. The most significant strength of the script is the portrayal of the relationships between Vaccaro, Jordan’s agent David Falk (Chris Messina) and Jordan’s mother Deloris (Viola Davis). Falk provides an obstacle for Vaccaro, giving the first insight into Jordan’s negative feelings towards Nike. From there, Damon’s everyman portrayal of Vaccaro contrasts brilliantly with Messina’s tough-talking, bad-mouthed sports agent, transforming Falk from just an obstacle in the narrative into a memorable character that we love to hate.

One of the most memorable moments of Air comes in a monologue delivered passionately by Damon as Vaccaro. He tells Jordan about how the shoe will allow people from around the world to have their own piece of Jordan’s greatness, adding meaning to their lives. The film is not about the man Michael Jordan; it is about the myth and the legend of Air Jordan. Air is just like the shoes, another way for us to get a glimpse of Jordan’s transcendent magic.

Then, there’s Deloris Jordan, who provides the film’s heart in the midst of all the fast-talking and hard-hitting aspects of the business world. Whilst Falk has Jordan’s interests in mind, Deloris is the only character whose main priority is her son’s happiness and stability. Davis, hand-picked by Michael Jordan himself, gives a stellar performance by bringing each of us, and Vaccaro, back down to Earth to remind us that no amount of money or flattery can overtake the basic principles of respect and courtesy. In the first scene we are introduced to Deloris, she shows Vaccaro a tree that has been in the Jordan household for hundreds of years, sharply contrasting with the cold, corporate environment of the Nike offices. Deloris reminds us that this is not a straightforward underdog tale, but a story about protecting the interests of the ones we love so that they can grow and live on beyond our lifetimes, just as the tree will.

Air is a light, well-paced film that makes two hours fly by. It will leave you thinking, ‘wow, I can’t believe I got so invested in a pair of shoes’. It subverts the traditional boardroom drama, keeping us entertained with a mixture of comedic one-liners and heartfelt monologues, all interspersed with familiar 80s nostalgia. To echo Vaccaro’s words, ‘Air Jordan… it’s fucking fantastic.’

Score: 19/24

Written by Grace Laidler

Follow Grace Laidler on Twitter: @gracewillhuntin