A genie tries to help a man repair his fractured family in this holiday film written by Richard Curtis and co-starring Paapa Essiedu.

You have to really watch your language when hanging out with a genie. Especially a genie who can grant unlimited wishes. After all, it’s too easy to utter the words “I wish” when you don’t really mean them, and the result could be that you accidentally send someone directly to Hell. So please, please, be careful what you say.

Written by Richard Curtis (Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill), the streaming film is a loose remake of Bernard and the Genie, a 1991 BBC television movie that he also scripted. You can’t blame the British writer-director for attempting to go back to the yuletide well; after all, his Love Actually has become such a cinematic holiday staple that for many people it now ranks alongside It’s a Wonderful Life and Die Hard as required Christmastime viewing. This latest effort, however, is unlikely to join that pantheon.

The person she’s addressing is the Dickensian-named Bernard Bottle (Paapa Essiedu, I May Destroy You), who naturally needs his life straightened out. Bernard has been toiling so hard for his tyrannical art auction-house boss (Alan Cumming, who, fun fact, played the role of Bernard in the original film) that he’s neglected his wife (Denée Benton, The Gilded Age) and adorable young daughter (Jordyn Mcintosh). When Bernard misses his daughter’s ice-skating birthday celebration, his fed-up spouse announces that she and their daughter will be spending the holidays without him at her parents’ home.

The distraught Bernard absent-mindedly rubs the jewelry box that he pathetically attempted to give his daughter as a birthday present, only to have Flora suddenly appear. She informs him that she can grant him unlimited wishes, unlike the traditional three (“That’s fairy tale stuff,” she sniffs), and that there are several rules, such as no time traveling allowed.

Cue the culture clash gags as Bernard introduces the colorfully costumed Flora to the joys of pizza, hip-hop and movies, especially ones starring Tom Cruise. She has a little trouble adjusting at first — she doesn’t quite seem to understand the concept of air quotes — but is soon happily bopping around the city with him in what seems like an old “I Love New York” television commercial. If the two stop for coffee, you can be sure you’ll be able to see the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree in the background.  

To be fair, the film directed by Sam Boyd has its amusing moments, thanks to Curtis’ well-honed comic instincts. Essiedu nicely underplays as Bernard, going more for emotion than cheap laughs, and McCarthy is such a warm, engaging presence that you’ll search your home for any old-looking bottle that might contain a similarly helpful genie. But if you find one, let’s hope you’re a little wiser with your wishes. Bernard uses his final ones to secure a table at a packed restaurant and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for his daughter when the waiter snootily informs her that none are available. Presumably, it never occurred to him that curing cancer, eradicating world hunger or ending global conflicts might be better choices during the holiday season.