Merry Christmas Aubrey Flint review – Dickensian festive Britpic decorated by selection box of familiar faces

A cast including Richard E Grant, Celia Imrie, Kiell Smith-Bynoe and Nigel Planer warm up a formulaic narrative about a imperilled retirement community

The annual drive to expand the festive film canon begins unseasonably early with a modest, sentimentally inclined Britpic that opens like a penny-pinching John Lewis ad; thankfully, it improves from there. The titular Mr Flint (John Bradley) is a Napoleonic history buff whose animus towards late December dates from seeing his (French) mother drop dead amid the Christmas decorations; now he spends the holidays cavilling at carollers and insisting that the icy pavements of his native York come with health-and-safety warnings.