Christmas with the Kranks is about as bad an adaptation as one can possibly get. Its source, John Grisham’s Skipping Christmas, is a mediocre novel that could have been a good movie. Instead, a passable story is lain out as poorly as possible.

Kranks’ primary failure – aside from the fact that it’s simply not funny – is that the characters never make it into the realm of possibility. Skipping Christmas convinces us that a man such as Luther Krank would actually want to skip Christmas entirely because he’s fed up with the commercial enterprise that the holiday has become. In Christmas with the Kranks, we are convinced of nothing more than that Luther Krank (Tim Allen) is a crazy guy who doesn’t want to celebrate Christmas for some reason. At least we believe he is a human being, however, which is more than can be said for his wife, Nora (Jamie Lee Curtis), who consistently and inexplicably acts like she’s five years old.

The problem with Nora isn’t just that Curtis has gone mad, it’s certainly the direction. And it’s certainly intentional. I just don’t understand why. It’s not just Nora: everyone in the town, including Dan Aykroyd, act like cartoon characters that just got released from the nuthouse. I think there’s supposed to be some playfulness to it, to bring levity to the tone of the film. But it doesn’t work. It all comes off appearing extraordinarily dumb.

As if things couldn’t get any worse, they do. It’s generally unnecessary to add content to a film adaptation of a novel. Because a novel has so much material, you have to shave off as much as you can. Of course, it’s possible that some films do need to add content to make the story flow in an abbreviated version. Such, is not the case with Christmas with the Kranks however. The movie adds a good deal. And all of it is unnecessary. And all of it weakens the film. There’s a two pronged slapstick episode about Nora getting the Christmas ham, there’s Luther’s random Botox injection, some strange character who thinks he’s Santa Claus and then there are multiple scenes involving a burglar that are added. None of any of it adds anything to the story.

In Kranks’ last chance to redeem itself – with Luther’s change of heart – it fails. We are never convinced that Luther would make the decision that he makes, and even when he does, it is hardly sincere. Christmas with the Kranks is an attempt at bringing Christmas joy gone terribly wrong.