A good test of a "comedic" film is the laughter engendered in an audience. I have endured too many supposed comedies, where I have continually thought, "This isn't at all funny." I saw this film at a festival showing with about 900 people in the audience. Although the laughter was not constant, there were many, many occasions during the film, when one could not hear the lines of the actors, because there was such prolonged uproarious laughter in response to the preceding dialogue. I personally haven't laughed so much at film in a very long time.
It is a very charming Christmas story, featuring a very unusual (to an American) Christmas celebration involving extended families of two young gay men meeting for the first time. The acting is of the highest caliber. There are some pratfalls, but if they are humorous, it is not because someone slipped on a banana peel, but the circumstances leading up to the slip. Most of the humor is from the lines of the actors. Although the ending is predictable and perhaps formulaic, no audience would expect it to end a tragically, and comedy continues to the end.
