Will Ferrellas Ghost of Christmas PresentThe story
About Spirited
Every Christmas Eve a crew of ghosts picks one hard-hearted person and reforms them with a night of visits from the past, present and future. This year the spirit in charge of the present, played by Will Ferrell, sets his sights on a slick media consultant (Ryan Reynolds) who manufactures outrage for a living, but the target refuses to crack and starts turning the questions back on the ghost himself. It is a song-and-dance retelling of A Christmas Carol told from the spirits' side of the haunting.
The CineClaus verdict
A Carol told from the haunters' side of the night, and the switch pays off.
Ferrell and Reynolds spar like a double act who enjoy each other, and the songs from the La La Land pair are better than a streaming musical strictly needs. It is also far too long, and the jokes about outrage merchants keep elbowing the sincerity aside until the final stretch, which earns its tears.
A natural fit for musical theatre lovers who already know every version of the Dickens story and fancy seeing it from the ghosts' end.
The family desk
Can the kids watch?
Our take: teenagers should be fine, but younger viewers get swearing, plenty of innuendo and a storyline involving a teenager's suicide and a terminal illness.
Content advice & accessibility
- Our age guidance
- Editorial, separate from the official 12A certificate, and never looser than it.
