Nugget is Dead – and so is the comedy in this half-baked Christmas caper

Nugget is Dead: A Christmas Story
Stan
★★½

Search for “Christmas” on Stan (which, like this masthead, is owned by Nine) and you’ll get about 150 titles, including such staples as Love, Actually, The Grinch Who Stole Christmas and Elf. You’ll also find the handful of Australian Christmas movies which Stan has turned out annually since 2020.

That pales by comparison with the Hallmark Channel, which will release 32 Christmas-themed movies this year, but it’s clear the local streamer is doing its small bit to build a local festive tradition.

It would be nice to report that Nugget is Dead, which is written by and stars Vic Zerbst and Jenna Owen – who first broke through with their comedy-current affairs skits on SBS’s The Feed – is a hilarious addition to the fold. But despite the echoes of Muriel’s Wedding and The Castle, it never quite gets there.

Zerbst stars as Steph Stool (a name whose significance and putative hilarity gradually emerges, like a turtle poking its head out of its shell), a trainee dermatologist – or “pimple doctor”, as her father (Damien Garvey) insists – who has vowed to finally stand up to her perennially triggering family by not going home for the holidays.

Of course, that promise lasts all of two minutes. When she gets a call to say her dog Nugget is dead – “well not dead, but not good”, clarifies Mum (Gia Carides) – Steph leaves “the city” and heads home in a panic.

Home is a town on the NSW south coast, but it could be any slice of bland Australian suburbia. It’s meant to look generic and stifling and a little cringy, because that’s how Steph sees it. She thinks she’s outgrown her origins, and is embarrassed by her hair- and beauty-obsessed cousin (Owen), who has dreams of building a fake eyelash business. But over time, home becomes a place of comfort and familiarity and, Steph finally realises, where she is most herself.

Nugget is Dead fits firmly within the home-for-the-holidays sub-genre of family comedy-drama. It’s something they do a lot of in the US, which perhaps explains why the film has already made it to American television, screening on CBS last week. And judging by some of the user reviews on imdb.com, they really didn’t know what to make of it.

In fact, the biggest laugh you get from Nugget might come from reading the comments from bewildered Yanks. “What is the point of this film,” asks one, under the headline “A holiday slog” (rating: 1/10).

“The main character’s family is so over the top annoying, non-stop talking, squealing, fussing, pushy, dotty grandma,” writes another. “Any rational person would have moved way far away from them a long time ago.” (Rating: 1/10.)

Some American viewers do get it, though. They like that the characters “looked and acted like real people” and that “nobody does dysfunctional families quite like our Australian cousins” (rating for both: 8/10).

There’s truth in that. We do do dysfunctional families well. We do know how to cringe at the suburbia from which most of us have sprung. And when it comes to barbecues on screen, we do it better than anyone else.

Laughs, though? The stockings are a little light on there, I’m afraid.

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