Fans of escapist holiday fare no longer need to rely solely on the Hallmark Channel for their annual fix of mindless entertainment combined with snow and tinsel. In the past few years, the streaming giants have also jumped on the sleigh, I mean bandwagon, with films like FALLING FOR CHRISTMAS (Netflix) and SPIRITED (Apple). Peacock, which has no shortage of holiday-themed TV episodes in its vast catalogue of NBC shows of yore, has given audiences an early Christmas gift this year with GENIE, starring Melissa McCarthy.

A remake of the 1991 British television movie, BERNIE AND THE GENIE (which I’ve never seen but all my friends in the UK have), GENIE tells the story of Bernard Bottle (Paapa Essiedu, MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS), a put-upon British art dealer for Flaxman’s, a prestigious auction house in Manhattan owned by the rich and snooty Charles Flaxman (Alan Cumming, TV’s THE GOOD WIFE). On the night of Bernard’s daughter’s birthday, Charles presses Bernard into working late, which causes friction between Bernard and his wife, Julie (Denée Benton, TV’s THE GILDED AGE). When Bernard finally gets home that night, Julie announces that she’s taking their daughter to her mother’s for a some time while she reevaluates their marriage. Dejected and now alone, Bernard picks up a dingy, bejewelled box from the bookcase and starts rubbing it to shine it up. When he does, he unwittingly releases a genie named Flora (McCarthy, CAN YOU EVER FORGIVE ME?; SPY) who tells Bernard that his wish is her command. With Christmas just around the corner, Bernard needs all the help he can get to bring his family back together quickly.

I like Melissa McCarthy, I truly do, but she really has to stop taking on these rubbish projects that are unworthy of her comedic talent. To be fair though, on paper, GENIE probably looked like it would be a winner. It was written by Richard Curtis (YESTERDAY; LOVE ACTUALLY; BRIDGET JONES’S DIARY; NOTTING HILL; FOUR WEDDINGS AND A FUNERAL), who updated and expanded upon his original script from 1991, and directed by Sam Boyd, the creator of TV’s LOVE LIFE. This version is much more kid-friendly than the original was (I’m going by the synopsis which mentions that Bernie accidentally kills someone and he gets his ex- girlfriend arrested on drug charges) and it’s painfully PC. Here, the genie is a White woman and Bernard is a Black man while the original saw the genie as a Black man with Bernie being White. Not a coincidence I’m sure, Bernie in the original was played by Alan Cumming.

But differences between the two films aside, GENIE begins to lose its charm as soon as Flora ditches her Bohemian-Arabian styling, opting instead to run around Manhattan with Bernard looking like an ordinary, middle aged, rich White woman. (Let’s not discuss the Lambo that he wishes for and gets but no one seems to notice.) I’ll concede, though, that I did laugh when Flora appears for a moment dressed like 102-year-old New York fashion icon Iris Apfel but my happiness quickly disappeared when she later puts on a Zabar’s outfit. A little bit too Upper West Side, dear. Once Bernard realises what Flora can do for him, the story then drifts from cosmic misfire to cosmic misfire as he inadvertently prefaces far too many of his sentences with “I wish…”. A subplot involving Flora and Bernard’s too rough-around-the-edges for the Upper West Side doorman, Lenny (Marc Maron, TO LESLIE), seems forced, though it does resolve itself rather nicely at the end.

Essiedu, for his part, is perfectly forgettable here. I can’t help but think the casting director was told to find a “John David Washington type with a British accent”. Between his blandness, and everyone else’s too for that matter, McCarthy is forced to do all the heavy lifting. I have no doubt that given the right script and a more capable director she can do it but GENIE has neither of these. It’s a joyless drag.

GENIE is streaming now on Peacock. It may be one gift this year that you might want to give back. It looks like Peacock has done just that as their YouTube channel doesn’t even have the trailer on it.

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