Who’s In It: Alfred Molina, Elizabeth Peña, Freddy Rodriguez, Luis Guzman, Jay Hernandez, John Leguizamo, Debra Messing, Vanessa Ferlito, Melonie Diaz
The Basics: A Puerto Rican family gathers in Chicago’s Humboldt Park area to celebrate worn out Christmas movie clichés about bickering dysfunctional families, including the ones about coming together to stand vigil beside the one that might be about to kick the bucket. I blame that repulsive mommy-dies-for-the-holidays “The Christmas Shoes” song for all this: for Stepmom, The Family Stone, even the excellent current French film A Christmas Tale. Curse you, “The Christmas Shoes!”
What’s The Deal: This movie gets away with its crap because the people in it are all so darn likeable. Can you hate the very cool Luis Guzman? I don’t think it’s humanly possible. And Debra Messing steals most of the scenes she’s in by standing outside the action, dancing badly and being the cruel one. (She bets—and wins—money on whether or not her husband John Leguizamo will injure himself trying to cut down the big eyesore tree in the front yard.) But even a good cast doesn’t make a movie enjoyable. It just means it got lucky.
Cue Symbolism in 3…2…1: Because it’s not enough that there be multiple storylines reviving limp Ghosts of Christmas Movie Junk Past, there also has to be a recurring motif. That’s the tree, the one that represents the concept of family. Big, old, ugly and so sturdy it resists being chopped down. Just the kind of thing they try to teach you to avoid in creative writing classes.
What The Friend I Brought With Me To The Press Screening Said: “This is the worst movie I’ve seen in years.” But he just doesn’t see enough really cruddy movies, is all. This isn’t the worst Christmas movie I’ve ever seen by far. That award would go to 1972’s bizarrely inept Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny. As for more recent crap, Christmas in Wonderland, which got an aborted regional release last year before “premiering” on cable this season, and which stars Carmen Electra and Patrick Swayze, stands out as particularly wrenching. Those are some bad Christmas movies. It’s good to have some perspective.
One Lingering Question About The Plot: Can anyone who actually lives in the Humboldt Park area confirm or deny the existence of a tradition where people go door to door rousting people out of their homes for a forced march through the streets singing Christmas carols? It happens in this movie. Seems like a half-fun, half-awful pastime if it’s real.