This Christmas (2007)

I'm betting this would be better known if it hadn't named itself after that particular song. Not that there's anything wrong with the 1970 holiday song; it's just that the last few decades have been filled with a barrage of movies with similar names. When you hear a movie is titled, "This Christmas," the song isn't what pops to mind, but rather movies like Last Christmas, That Christmas, The Holiday, along with God knows how many Hallmark movies. The title of This Christmas simply isn't memorable.

That's somewhat true of the movie, as well, though I want to stress this isn't necessarily a flaw. This Christmas sets out to deliver a a relatively traditional Christmas movie experience: a dysfunctional family confronting the holidays, renewing their commitment to each other, and going into a new year with more faith and optimism than they had during the last. The template is boilerplate; the variation comes from a change in setting and characters. Like Almost Christmas nine years later, this is centered on a black family, rather than the white, upper-middle class focus of, say, Hallmark.

That has a number of positive effects, the most important of which being it offers some needed representation to black families looking for options closer to their experience than, say, The Family Stone. And because things like this aren't made in the same volume as those featuring predominantly white casts, it also means this is able to pull in a better group of actors than you typically get. Loretta Devine, Idris Elba, Regina King, Delroy Lindo, and Chris Brown all have major roles. It also means the people behind the scenes, most notably writer/director Preston A. Whitmore II, are actually trying to deliver something worthwhile.

It comes through in the execution: the jokes here are funny, there's thought put into the arcs, and the themes are a bit more nuanced than you expect from holiday films about families. The movie is, in short, extremely well constructed. It succeeds in what it sets out to do.

So why don't I think it's memorable? That largely comes down to tone and presentation. Despite some plot developments that should objectively be tense, everything is presented in a manner that's ultimately fairly relaxed. This is a movie where one character is, at several points, threatened with violence - possibly death - but it's framed in ways that alleviate rather than build suspense. The bookies armed with a gun are bumbling and even a bit affable: we know things won't escalate that far. Same goes for another character struggling with her husband's infidelity. The movie is approaching dark subjects with a light touch to avoid upsetting the Christmas mood. Solutions wind up being unrealistically easy. The costs are hidden, and consequences are ignored.

Whether that's a feature or a bug boils down to what you want out of the movie. In a sense, this is approaching the holidays using a formula similar to the one Hallmark would employ in subsequent decades: presenting a world of easy answers and quick catharsis to reassure viewers that family and Christmas are constants. Though it's worth noting it differs from Hallmark in myriad ways, including having characters actually have sex.

The themes, however, are more or less in line with typical holiday fare, though - as I mentioned earlier - the movie explores them in more depth at times. While it's primarily about the importance of family, it's willing to acknowledge this isn't a simple topic. The character being cheated on ultimately decides to divorce her husband, and the movie paints this as growth. Likewise, the movie at least approaches the subject of the family's absent patriarch, a musician who left decades earlier, as complicated, with the last word seeming to suggest he had no choice other than to follow his passion. Whether or not you agree with that in principle, it's refreshing to see a movie refuse to demonize a character for choosing to move on.

Moving on is itself something of a recurring theme here, as the matriarch's arc is concerned with coming to terms with two of her sons following in their father's footsteps into careers in music, which will take them away from her. The movie as a whole is working to reconcile the idea that family is deeply important with the fact families are made up of individuals whose paths may take them in different directions, and further that people can be welcomed into or even exiled from that family (as in the case of the unfaithful husband). The conclusion is perhaps a bit simplistic: feel free to leave, but don't forget to come home (for the holidays). Still, the fact it digs deeper than "family good" puts this ahead of a large portion of this subgenre.

I also appreciated the restraint shown around religion. To be clear, faith is absolutely a theme present throughout the film, which absolutely endorses religion and church. However, that endorsement is notably mundane in presentation: there are no miracles in the narrative save those the characters make for themselves. The power of church and belief are limited to their ability to teach and inspire; there are no angels or supernatural interventions here. In addition, one character - Elba's - states early on that he doesn't consider himself Christian and has no interest in going to church. He has an extended arc surrounding whether or not he'll leave for good or return that absolutely could have been resolved with him showing up at a celebration in church. Instead, they save his reemergence for Christmas dinner. It's subtle, but the movie respects his decision to stay away from church, rather than treating it as a flaw needing to be overcome.

I haven't really discussed the plot in any depth, nor do I intend to. This is an ensemble of characters, each with their own side story: the movie is meant to emerge from the way these stories interweave. There's no simple story at the core of the film beyond a family reuniting for the holidays and committing to remain a family, no matter where their lives take them.

I will mention one plotline typical of the genre, though oddly understated here: a debate surrounding selling the family house. This is naturally both a symbol of the family as a whole, as well as an anchor to Christmases past. We see this a lot in holiday movies about families coming together (it would be a large component of Almost Christmas, for example). We see it here, as well, though it's more a side story than a central one. In addition, this never really treats it as much of a serious threat, which is unusual. The movie introduces the threat but doesn't attempt to mine much drama out of it. Then, like most everything else, it resolves the matter fairly quickly.

This one's tough. On one hand, it's a well executed, funny holiday film with a cast and setting differentiating it from the larger subgenre. On the other... well... it's a big subgenre. And the decision to reign in the drama means the movie winds up light on substance. As I keep saying, depending on what you're after, that may well be a positive. In my case, though, I wanted something with a little more emotional punch.