This made-for-TV comedy by Richard Curtis, about a man called Bernard who at his lowest point (and at Christmas), finds and befriends a genie played by a high-profile comic actor, is … well, it’s a remake of Bernard and the Genie, 32 years later, by the same writer. This Bernard is a dad whose wife moves out after he misses his daughter’s birthday and then gets fired for no reason. None of this is funny. It’s just sad. And entirely lacking in meaningful stakes: he’s clearly sickeningly wealthy and there’s never any suggestion that losing his job is a big deal or will affect his life or his beautiful New York apartment, and his wife and daughter moving out are, frankly, deserved. Bernard and the Genie, on the other hand, is basically just an absurdist retelling of the Book of Job followed by cathartic, cruel silliness. It’s funny because it’s so supremely absurd, bathetic where the remake is so often pathetic. The result is a movie that is at least trying to do something original, even if the execution is lacking. Both are worth a watch.