12 Alternative Movies We're Sick Of Hearing Are Set At Christmas

2. Iron Man 3

The Christmas setting in Iron Man 3 provides a counterpoint to Tony Stark's PTSD after the events in New York, bringing out the stressful, high pressure side of Christmas. It's a sad fact that rates of suicide and depression peak around the holidays when everything in the media is telling people that they should be happy. Iron Man 3 divided fan opinion on its release with its portrayal of an traumatised Iron Man still reeling from the events in New York but personally I don't see a way they could have followed Avengers without addressing its effect on the only team member who is neither an immortal, super soldier, genetically altered rage monster or a hardened super-spy. Iron Man 3 is interesting because it effectively answers what seemed like a throwaway comment in Avengers. Inside his suit Tony Stark might be a genius billionaire playboy philanthropist, but Iron Man 3 shows him with too many suits by half. All the things he uses to define himself falling away as his relationship crumbles, his house slides into the sea and he's left hiding in a garage with a damaged suit. It's a relatively common plot device to ask what happens when super-powered characters lose their powers (Korra and Buffy spring to mind, not to mention Thor) but Iron Man 3 is a rare example where the powers are returned not by an outside force but by the protagonist's own determination and ingenuity. Of course this is easier in Tony Stark's case as there is nothing supernatural about his superpower: just a generous bank balance, a high IQ and an aptitude for building things. And this is what makes the finale possible: Tony realises his strength is not in the suits he's been compulsively building and refining against every available possibility, but in his own ingenuity and sets the surplus ones to self destruct.