Film

There is one day in the year when it is acceptable for anyone, of any age, to lie on the sofa all day and for much of the night. The blinds remain legitimately lowered; the telly can stay switched on. One hand will grasp the remote control; the other might leaf through a jumbo box of After Eights. It will probably be raining; you may be feeling more than a little sick; the trousers you were given yesterday feel a size too small today, and Granny has just announced she will be staying another night. It’s Boxing Day.

Traditional feelings — disappointment, torpor, lassitude — can be kept at bay as long as one remains glued to the sofa, deaf to all interruptions and with one’s gaze fixed firmly on the flickering screen. And television isn’t good enough — it has to be feature films. TV programmes can absorb — they may even divert — but they rarely transport and, compared with, say, 30 minutes of EastEnders, a good film can buy 120 minutes of rapport between bickering relatives. Yes, rapport: not a word one associates automatically with families at Christmas, and certainly not a mood induced by other Boxing Day activities. Long walks end in tears and blisters; family meals are notorious black spots; and board games bring out the worst in everyone, more likely than not to end with dice, board and pieces crackling on the fire.

Putting together a daytime viewing programme takes a little more consideration than one for after dark. There may be children about — there tend to be at this time of year — and it’s in everyone’s interests to bear them in mind, in case they burst into the room while someone’s being shot to death and are in consequence put off Martin Scorsese’s entire oeuvre.