“One of the things I wanted to get across is that Christmas is lovely, but for some people Christmas isn’t all tinsel and gingerbread men,” Boyle-McQuarry explained.
“It can be a reflective time, a tricky time. We wanted to try and get that balance.”
While the review’s have been mixed, speaking shortly after the film’s general release, Spring said its reception from the public had been “really good”.
“It’s making people laugh, making people cry and hopefully they’re coming out of the cinema feeling a lot more Christmassy than when they came in.”
Jo Patton, who watched the screening in York, said he “just had a smile on my face for the last half an hour”.
“They’ve captured something which is very human and very British.”
Filming took place last year outside his toy shop, Totally Awesome, with the shop-front featuring on screen.
“The turquoise of the shop popped really well – they featured it really beautifully,” he said.
“You only ever see a tiny bit of that puzzle,” he recalled.
“I don’t know how many takes we saw. I didn’t know what was going on.”
