Nothing Like the Holidays (2008)

When I say "Nothing Like the Holidays" is a frustrating movie, it's not because the movie is bad (which it isn't). Bad movies are rarely frustrating, because you don't expect or necessarily want much from them beyond for them to end. Movies I find frustrating are those which have exceptional elements that make you root for them to succeed, only to watch as they fall short of greatness.

In this case, the "exceptional elements" are first and foremost its cast, which is significantly more impressive than you'd expect from a movie in this subgenre and budget. Alfred Molina, Debra Messing, John Leguizamo, and Luis Guzmán are in this, along with a number of less well-known but also excellent actors. In addition, the movie manages to take a tired template - the dysfunctional family at Christmas - and adjust the setting and story elements just enough to occasionally surprise you.

The selling point here, aside from the cast on their own merits, is that this is set in a Puerto Rican community in Chicago. On one hand, this movie is basically The Family Stone (or any of a dozen other movies with the same basic premise) with the usual rich white people swapped out for a middle-class Puerto Rican family. Okay, other than Debra Messing, who's playing the rich, Jewish wife of one of the family's children. More on her in a moment.

First, I should acknowledge that the goal of this movie likely wasn't to win over white Christmas nerds, but rather to offer Puerto Rican viewers an opportunity to see their communities represented in one of these movies. To that end, this was obviously successful: it's a solid entry in its subgenre with a great cast (though I should mention several actors playing Puerto Rican characters aren't of Puerto Rican descent, including Molina). This movie offers something different than the Hallmarkified portrait of small-town America Christmas, and that alone is worth recognition.

As is typical for this subgenre, the movie is less driven by a single character arc or story than a web of subplots, to the point I don't believe I could identify a central story or main character if I tried. This is of course by design: they want an ensemble of different characters for the audience to identify with without leaving anyone in the unfortunate place of having identified with the villain (though Leguizamo's character comes close). The problem with this approach is you really need either some kind of compelling thesis or you need to pull everything together in the last act to sell the idea it's more than the sum of its parts. This doesn't manage either.

I'm not going to try a full synopsis, but let's cover a few of the basics. Alfred Molina is playing family patriarch, Edy, who's hiding a secret. His wife, Anna (Elizabeth Peña) thinks that secret is an affair, so she announces her intention to divorce him. It's not an affair - it's terminal cancer - but he allows the misconception to continue until the end, because he doesn't want the news to ruin his family's last Christmas together.

This is, of course, dumb, as Anna's divorce plans are ruining Christmas, while the news of Edy's impending death winds up pulling them together. There's an attempt to handwave this by having him tell Anna at the end he thought perhaps it would be better if she started to hate him, but that's nonsense. You never buy that the character is maintaining the illusion for any reason other than the plot needs this here for drama.

Meanwhile, their son, Jesse (Freddy Rodriguez), has just returned from Iraq, where he was wounded when a friend of his was killed after taking his place on duty. He's overwhelmed with guilt and unsure what to do with his life, and is considering reenlisting. Also, his ex-girlfriend is around, though she has a new boyfriend, who... refreshingly isn't a horrible person. Actually, he's a pretty good guy. Jesse's journey is about coming to terms with survivor's guilt, accepting he won't be getting back together with his ex (who still cares about him but has a family), and moving on with his life (ultimately taking over his father's store).

Then there's his brother, Mauricio (Leguizamo). Honestly, there's not much to say about him aside from him being a successful, insecure businessman. But he's married to Sarah (Debra Messing), who's probably the movie's most interesting character. She's a wildly successful investment banker looking at a huge promotion. But she also kind of, maybe, probably wants kids? The movie is a bit wishy-washy about how much of this is coming from her own desires versus her husband's insecurities around having kids to make his mother happy, though Sarah does ultimately decide she wants to start trying (but she's also taking the promotion, because this does not want to be mistaken for a Hallmark movie from the same era).

That's not really what makes Sarah interesting. When she's introduced, the movie codes her ambiguously as something of a villain against family and kids and interested only in money and success. But as things develop, it becomes clear she's significantly more complicated. The movie sides with her regarding her commitment to her career, making it clear her success is nothing to belittle or dismiss. She also wants to be accepted by her husband's family, most of all his mother, who's kind of awful to her through most of the film (but comes around at the end).

Meanwhile, Edy and Anna's daughter, Roxanna (Vanessa Ferlito) is home as well. She's an actress living in LA, and everyone has the impression she's a rich star. But of course this is an illusion: she's had a couple bit parts in movies and is struggling to build a career. Through most of the movie, she's waiting for news on whether she's being offered a part in a TV show. At the end, she turns down the role, realizing she'd rather build a life in Chicago with Ozzy (Jay Hernandez), a friend of the family who's contemplating revenge against the man who killed his brother a decade earlier and is now out of jail. At the end of the movie, he confronts his brother's killer, who gives him the opportunity to kill him, because... Gah. This subplot needed to be a full movie to work, and it's given maybe three minutes of screentime. Anyway, Ozzy doesn't murder his brother's killer (who seems like a pretty good guy, all things considered), and throws his gun in the river like Bruce Wayne in Batman Begins.

Each of these plotlines is fine, but the sheer volume of character arcs and relationships mean none have the space to develop dramatically. There's good stuff here, granted, such as the way the dysfunctional relationships are rooted in anxiety believably sold as the product of a lifetime of family dynamics. And of course the cast is adding depth to the material at every turn, and it does help. But without better jokes or a more intricate structure, there's only so much you can do with holiday archetypes this straightforward.

I'll remind you that's my opinion. I wouldn't be at all surprised to hear these jokes land better for viewers who recognize people they grew up with in these characters and community. And even without that connection, I still found quite a few of the jokes funny - as I said at the start, this one isn't bad. But there are a lot of movies using this formula, and I don't think it's one of the best.