Noel (2004)
Average Rating: 4.3/10
Reviews Counted: 35
Fresh: 10 | Rotten: 25
No consensus yet.
Average Rating: 3.4/10
Critic Reviews: 14
Fresh: 1 | Rotten: 13
No consensus yet.
liked it
Average Rating: 3.3/5
User Ratings: 6,383
Movie Info
A group of disparate characters look for understanding and compassion in the midst of a lonely holiday season in this comedy drama. Rose (Susan Sarandon) is a middle-aged divorcée whose mother is in the hospital with an advanced case of Alzheimer's disease; while Rose wants one more chance to tell her mother that she loves her, the woman doesn't even know who she is anymore. Mike (Paul Walker) is a police officer who has become the obsessive focus of an elderly waiter, Artie (Alan Arkin), who is
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Cast
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Penelope Cruz
Nina -
Susan Sarandon
Rose -
Paul Walker
Mike -
Alan Arkin
Artie -
Marcus Thomas
Jules -
Robin Williams
(Uncredited) -
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All Critics (41) | Top Critics (17) | Fresh (10) | Rotten (25) | DVD (5)
One of those unpleasant fiascoes meant to lodge a lump in the throat at Christmas, but it only ends up making you want to bludgeon the elves with their own toy-shop hammers.
The nut-ball factor is just too high for these characters.
The kind of sappy, sadness-turns- to-gladness holiday movie that shows up on cable TV this time of year.
Palminteri draws some very good performances from his cast -- only to pile on a lot of shameless heart-tugging on top of a contrived script about five New Yorkers facing Christmas Eve alone.
Top CriticThe mawkishness meter is turned up full blast by the time Williams, wearing the hangdog expression he saves for maudlin dramas, shows up out of nowhere as a former priest to save an unhappy Sarandon from jumping into the East River.
I can be sentimental under the right circumstances, but the movie is such a calculating tearjerker that it played like a challenge to me.
I had a very hard time displaying malice to this.
Pleasantly watchable.
A film about folks celebrating Christmas together is about as interesting and carries as much dramatic thrust as the 1989 Christmas reunion video immortalized on Uncle Fred's camcorder.
The sentiments are right on the money, but the execution never quite filled me with holiday cheer.
There's nothing at all surprising about Noel, except for the fact that it was ever made.
If you are looking for a Christmas film that is unconventional, that has a lot of heart without wallowing in sentimentality, this is a good bet.
A holiday gift wrapped in sadness -- but tied tenderly with hope.
Three tear-jerking stories about faith, love and the redemptive spiritual power of a frosty Christmas Eve
Fits snugly into the 'Christmas movie' canon by tapping into familiar problems, tugging at the heartstrings and stirring your tired soul.
Noel delivers two astonishing scenes of love and forgiveness that will take your breath away and are perfectly in tune with the miraculous nature of Christmas.
I can think of 59,054,087 people who are intellectually deprived enough to buy into “Noel.”
The all-star cast do their best, but the individual stories are so truncated that they can't do much in the way of giving their characters real emotional depth.
Santa discontinued that whole coal-in-the-stocking thing a while back. Now, he brings movies like this one when you're bad.
Audience Reviews for Noel
Super Reviewer
Super Reviewer
A Movie focuses five lives with different problems on christmas eve.
Super Reviewer
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