Cubussoli Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

TaryBiggBall It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

Aubrey Hackett While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

Beulah Bram A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

rhoda-9 We are used to family-problem plays, but this movie works up a problem where it seems none exists. Sisters Margaret Leighton and Celia Johnson (supposed to be 31 but really 44 and looking it) each have secrets they keep from their father, minister Ralph Richardson, because they are sure he wouldn't understand. Yet, from what we see, this is utterly ridiculous. Leighton says people are individuals, not types. Yet she (and her brother, a very young and rather dishy Denholm Elliott) keep shouting at the poor man that he can't be told the truth, not because, as she says, of "anything personal," but because he is a clergyman. But all clergymen are not alike. Indeed, Richardson never is shown to be anything but an old sweetie, very mild-mannered, thoughtful, and self-deprecating.Then there is what we can conjecture. In more than twenty years, haven't the three of them had more than enough contact with their father to know that he is neither a rigid moralist nor a hypocrite? Why do they just characterise him as "a parson" rather than the father they know and love.Not only is this very silly, but Celia Johnson's character is nothing like as sympathetic as it is intended. Her fiancé wants her to marry him and join him in South America, where he has to be for five years. Yet she firmly brushes off love, sex, children, and warm weather, saying that she must stay and look after daddy. And this a daddy who has nothing physically or mentally wrong with him and who plainly has the money to hire help. Not to mention that her mother has been dead barely six months--it shouldn't be long before all the unmarried women in the countryside will be batting their eyes at him!Yet a story so contrived and false is presented as tremendously heartwarming. Leighton is, as usual, divine, and the carols were nice, but that's about it.

pete8811 I do not give out ten stars lightly. But I feel that this unusual and seldom seen British film is truly worthy of the highest praise - thus as many starts as I am allowed to dole out.As the previous reviewer said, this is a very realistic movie. In fact, I would say that it's well ahead of its time. Its made in the 1950s but it level of realism is like something that would come decades later.It reminds me a tiny but of The Lion In Winter - another terribly realistic movie (also set at Christmas) about a family trying to get along.My wife and I have looked for this movie EVERY Christmas for the past ten years or so on television and been lucky enough to see it only once.I wish they would show it more often.Somehow, its unknown. But it should be among the list of great Christmas movies.

b-cottrill Christmas movies seem to multiply like the commercial world's "Season's Greetings"--and most of them are just as hollow and pointless. This is an exception, British cinema at its best. "The Holly and the Ivy" is an emotional roller coaster that leaves you wanting more.Members of a family assemble to celebrate Christmas in the home of their father, a widowed Anglican clergyman. Various ones have gone through painful experiences of one kind or another. And all have concealed the details from their father on the assumption that he wouldn't understand "because he's a parson." The shattering explosions that occur as bits of the truth begin to be revealed are memorable. Forget about the endless fantasies, flying reindeer and dancing snowmen. This is a real Christmas about real people. The resolution at the end may come a little too quickly, but it is satisfying. See this movie if you can find it--and urge the powers that be to re-issue it on DVD.

Rosalind Jane I think I have only seen this film about 3 times in my life. But the impact it had on me each time I saw it was great. A tremendous British cast, in a tremendous British film. It just simply is not shown often enough, and on top of all that it is not available on Video/DVD.A story of a family brought together for Christmas, and their lives during the war years clearly showing through.Please let us have a change from the usual Christmas line up. Either give us a treat and show it over the coming Christmas or release it on Video/DVD. After all, how many variations of a Christmas Carol can somebody take over the festive period year after year.