Upon gathering together under one roof for the first time in seven years, an estranged family celebrating Christmas rediscovers long-forgotten bonds in this holiday family reunion drama starring Delroy Lindo, Regina King, and Mekhi Phifer. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
o matter how silly the situation, each member of the uniformly strong cast creates a nice balance between sentimental and sweet -- which is just how every holiday gathering should feel.
If the real-life Christmas experience tends too often to be marred by the rude contradiction between expectations and reality, movies like the ultra-bland holiday family movie This Christmas are at least partly to blame.
An incoherent mess in which scenes of teary reconciliations sit uncomfortably next to protracted gags involving catfights, car wrecks and a big bottle of baby oil.
This Christmas is not your typical family holiday movie, and thank goodness for that. It's warm, witty and alive, with a fantastic cast and a belief in its characters that transcends its formulaic tendencies.
Quite convincing in conveying the feeling of a real family, and in generating the requisite chemistry or antipathy as called for by their dysfunctional characters' dire circumstances.
...there's a genuine feeling of a real family's real Christmas, with all its heat as well as warmth, the kind of thing that's missing from the plastic platitudes of holiday junk like Fred Claus...
It was okay for a Christmas movie. Gets a bit sentimental at the end, but I think that's true of most for this genre. On the whole I enjoyed it and it was nice to see a Christmas movie focusing on an African American family.The one thing that really bothered me and is the reason i took a half star off my rating, is
because of the baby oil beating scene. Yes, I got that the husband was a liar and sleaze and had been treating his wife like crap for years, but that was really pretty bad. If it had have been the husband doing that to the wife, I don't think it would have been portrayed in a humorous light. Beating is still beating, it is wrong whoever does it.Anyhow, that small issue aside, this was an enjoyable movie, good to watch at Christmas time. Likeable cast and some laughs and dysfunction mixed in with the cheese.
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