Wednesday 4 December 2013 8pm

“A notably well-executed, very funny and very well-acted movie: a quirky, sardonic take on '50s faddishness, fame, power, friendship, character and ethics”. - Geoff Andrews, Time Out

It’s A Wonderful Life may have been the obvious choice for our Christmas film; instead we give you the Coen brothers’ loving parody of a Capra-esque feel-good festive flick, complete with New York in the snow and an angel.

A throwback to the fast-talking comedies of the 1940s and bursting with wonderful production design the film follows the unlikely adventures of Norville Barnes (Tim Robbins), a college graduate who secures a job in the postroom at Hudsucker Industries just as its chairman is jumping 50 floors to his death.

The chairman's scheming aide, Mussburger (Paul Newman, blues still a-twinklin'), decides to hire Norville as chairman, presuming he is a dunce whose new position will frighten the stockholders into selling all their stock cheaply, thus allowing him to consolidate his hold on the company.

Jennifer Jason Leigh channels Katherine Hepburn as cynical undercover reporter who Norville falls for at the office Christmas party.

The plot hinges on Robbins’ character producing the smash hit toy of the season, and in the end isn’t that who Christmas is for? You know, for kids?