Christmas On Film

Holiday movies are a cultural tradition in America. This is one of the rare film genres the viewer can rely on. Christmas movies are nearly always rather innocent with happy endings. The Hollywood trend of removing Baby Jesus started long ago. Remember Holiday Inn, The Miracle on 34th Street, and White Christmas? But all of these show rediscovered hope and wonder in humanity's goodness. It's A Wonderful Life never mentions Jesus Christ either, but it's theme of sacrifice hearkens to why Christ was born in the first place. More recent holiday films, like Home Alone and A Christmas Story, while light comedies, celebrate the love within families along with the challenges of those bonds. While there are so many favorites for Christmas, new holiday movies come out every year. I've found a few new ones, one classic and another released just last year.

I'll Be Seeing You stars Ginger Rogers and Joseph Cotton. Rogers plays a woman on furlough from prison. On her way to see family for Christmas, she meets a soldier (Cotton). He's recovering from battle in the pacific, with wounds both physical and mental. In black and white, the casting and acting is superb. The sadness and self-awareness in Ginger Roger's performance is matched by Joseph Cotton's unease and vulnerability. As the two fall in love over Christmas vacation, the tension grows. How long can Ginger Rogers keep her secret? What will happen when her soldier finds out? This movie is set during WWII, and the bittersweetness of that time comes through. Having already faced the fragile nature of life, you believe these two deserve some happiness with each other.

Fred Claus is an unusual look at Santa Claus. In most Santa Claus movies, there are all kinds of convoluted devices to explain how Santa works, how he's real. In this film, Santa is from the typical dysfunctional family, with Santa's brother Fred being overshadowed by and eventually resenting his famous, sainted brother. Fred is played by Vince Vaughn, with his usual fast-talking bad boy persona to hide his unhappiness. With a stellar cast featuring Paul Giamatti as Santa, Miranda Richardson as Mrs. Claus (in addition to Kevin Spacey and Kathy Bates), Fred Claus is at it's best with Vaughn's glib wit and lots of slapstick. It's not G, so parents should watch first to decide if it's right for their kids.

One of the little twists in Fred Claus is how it breaks Hollywood's rule about being immortal: one of the prices for everlasting life is that everyone you love dies, while you live on. As Santa is immortal here, so is his family and wife. So merry everlasting Christmas!

The Thanksgiving Theme

While there are many holiday movies with Christmas as their theme, and more produced every year, the Thanksgiving theme has only generated one or two films. The family favorite (though not necessarily family-friendly) Planes, Trains, and Automobiles is the first that comes to mind. Steve Martin's torturous journey home from a business meeting with ne'er-do-well John Candy is famously funny. It captures the "everything that can go wrong, will" of traveling as well as the yearning for family and home we all experience once in a while. The late John Candy is the best part of this movie. A seemingly true loser, we all run into guys like this who perpetually and unknowingly create problems for the rest of us smart, successful types. We all identify with Steve Martin's buttoned-up businessman, but you have to wonder: are you the John Candy-esque troublemaker for some family member or co-worker?

Another true loser was the Holly Hunter movie Home for the Holidays. Holly Hunter's character travels home to her dysfunctional family for Thanksgiving, running into all the old craziness of parents and squabbling siblings. But most of these "all families are crazy" movies reveal that there really is love and closeness underneath all the mess. Not this one. All the mean-spirited antics and teasing in this movie leave you disliking the family as much as they dislike each other. And this just adds more fuel to the Hollywood fire that home and family are dreadful traps.

Which leads us to Woody Allen's Thanksgiving-themed film, Hannah and Her Sisters. With all the craziness of your typical New York family, this movie is rife with adultery, infertility, and catered cocktail parties. Actually, this is a funny, charming movie with Allen's trademark touches ridiculing modern art, rock music, and passive-aggressive wives. But as with all of Allen's movies, love isn't true love without illicit sex. Eventually the characters in this movie do come to grasp what the rest of us know: physical passion is all-encompassing for a while, but it won't get you to "happily ever after." In this film, as the family gathers for Thanksgiving, Michael Caine, the narrator, sees how family and home bring much more profound happiness.