Shares

David E. Talbert’s “Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey,” the newest film to join the growing list of Netflix original holiday content, checks all the boxes for a memorable Christmastime adventure: a cast of both award-winning veterans and talented newcomers, thematic musical numbers and colorful sets accented with extravagantly dressed characters.

While the film has the whimsical charm of many timeless wonderlands — think “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” or “The Nutcracker” — it distinguishes itself through African-American cultural influences that go beyond simply plucking out white actors and throwing in Black ones. In fact, it’s that skillful diversity of characters, which automatically makes it a must-watch film this holiday season and deserving of accolades.

I have to ask is it a classic, though? Admittedly, I’m more of a “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer” and “The Santa Clause” kind of holiday movie girl, but I’m on the fence whether “Jingle Jangle” is a film to put on my annual-Christmas watchlist.

My husband…a man who doesn’t want to see a single jingle or jangle until Thanksgiving has passed insists we watch for the Culture. Meanwhile, I’m secretly belting out Christmas songs on my commute home in the middle of July.

Jeronicus Jangle (Forest Whitaker) is the most gifted inventor in all of Cobbleton, where he lives with his wife (Sharon Rose) and the couple’s intuitive daughter Jessica (Anika Noni Rose).

He is basically a wizard! Dude is literally calculating the “square root of fantastical” and dividing it by the “coefficient of spectacular” minus “the constant of impossible,” and writing the variables in mid air using mystical starlight dust.

That or he’s got that good ganja.

Life is wonderful and cheerful until, like all Christmas tales must go, Jeronicus loses everything he cherishes most. His trusted apprentice Gustafson (Keegan-Michael Key) has stolen his book of magnificant toy ideas and runs off with his intellectually-advanced albeit arrogant robot named Don Juan (voiced by Ricky Martin).

Don Juan is a cunning torero (literally rolled my tongue saying that) that couldn’t be a more stereotypical depiction of a Latino if he was moonlighting as a luchador and eating tacos in the background. Gustafson is…something I can say out loud, but I’m not comfortable writing out on the internet. These are the villains!

Jeronicus is thrown not only into financial disarray but also Ebenezer Scrooge-level loneliness. He tells Jessica, who at this point is motherless, to take hike! She eventually grants his wish, skipping town and giving birth to his granddaughter Journey, who he has never met.

At this point, Jeronicus has lost all sense of his identity as an inventor. He is bankrupt and running a poorly-kept pawn shop — once a hot an poppin’ toy store where he belittles his assistant and is often sexually harassed by a postal worker (Lisa Davina Phillip).

Journey, who is endowed with her grandfather’s inventive spirit, tricks her mother into thinking Jeronicus wants to reconnect using the good old ‘fake apology letter’ technique. Naturally, Jessica reads this, packs the little girl’s bags and sends Journey off to spend the Christmas holidays with a depressed hermit she hasn’t talked in at least a decade.