November 7, 2024
FILM: CHRISTMAS EVE IN MILLER’S POINT
DIRECTED BY: TYLER TAORMINA
STARRING: MATLIDA FLEMING, MARIA DIZZIA, BEN SHENKMAN
RATING: 2 out of 4 stars
By Dan Pal
It’s early November. That must mean it’s holiday movie season…right? Apparently so. Well, here’s one that I don’t think will be on everyone’s list to watch. It has so much potential but so many flaws. Christmas in Miller’s Point begins as a fairly traditional Christmas movie about a family gathering on December 24th. What it morphs into is an unfocused portrait of a myriad of characters before attempting to become something between Dazed and Confused and Superbad.
There’s a huge cast here including Michael Cera, who produced the film, a daughter of Martin Scorsese, and a son of Steven Spielberg. Not bad, eh? Don’t get too excited because none of them have much chance to stand out among this insanely large bunch of actors. At the beginning, one family, led by Ben Shenkman and Maria Dizzia, are on their way to the large celebration. Their son stares out the window, upside down, and we see his view of all the decorated houses along the way. When they arrive, we see his perspective of all the big personalities greeting him at the door. The scene is chaotic and fairly realistic to anyone who’s ever experienced a holiday celebration with aunts and uncles. It’s an interesting start, but then the point of view constantly shift to other characters. The problem is it changes so many times and there are so many characters that we never really get to know any of them very well.
The plot description suggests that the primary focus is on the house being sold. As such, we’d expect a certain air of sentimentality but the plot drifts so aimlessly between other brief narrative strands that we don’t get a chance to feel much about that seemingly very important detail. Instead we get an uncle discussing the novel he is writing, kids playing video games, a walk out for a fire engine parade, and so on. Later, the teens go out on the town mixing with a bunch of other teens that we haven’t met before and they attempt to get into a series of hijinks, including buying beer and hooking up for sex. (It’s like the Christmas Dazed and Confused.)
This is where Michael Cera comes in. He is a cop who drives around town with his partner, played by Gregg Turkington. They seem to be fairly ineffective at their jobs, but more than that they sit with pretty deadpanned expressions on their faces for most of their scenes. They have one big, awkward conversation late in the film, which I won’t spoil, but suffice to say it is directed as if David Lynch stepped in to create a new scene for one of his films or Twin Peaks (which Michael Cera appeared in for a couple of equally unusual scenes.) They’re not exactly the wacky cops we saw played by Bill Hader and Seth Rogen in Superbad, but it’s probably not an accident that seventeen years later, Cera has taken on an authority role while the kids are out doing stupid things.
At times the dialogue feels somewhat improvised, which doesn’t always work as there are a few uncomfortable pauses in a few scenes. It is probably the editor that should take some blame for that. In general, the editing could be tightened and the running time could be cut by about fifteen minutes. There’s just too much going on that it’s hard to keep track of who is who, how they are related to each other, and why we witness some of these scenes.
Cinematography is also a mixed bag of those interesting child point of view shots and others using what appear to be fish-eye and other lenses that distort some of the images. These choices seem random and inconsistent.
It’s too bad the film is so messy because there are some elements that could be expanded and made the focus of a whole other better movie. One of the boys seems to be a loner and spends a lot of his time upstairs. Why? We never really find out. There’s a hint of a relationship between two teenaged girls, played by Francesca Scorsese and an underutilized Elsie Fisher (Eighth Grade, Barry.) That also remains unfinished as a plot point.
Yes, the film is filled with some of the scenes that are often found in other Christmas movies, such as everyone eating, opening gifts, watching old home videos, and engaging in idle chit chat. But then we get the confounding use of holiday music mixed with pop songs from the 1960s. It’s not clear why the music is so nostalgic since few of the characters were around during that time. For much of the film, we might think the celebration is taking place in an earlier era what with the music, phones with cords, and older cars. However, kids playing video games and flip phones…that happened later. Perhaps the director wanted to give the film a timeless quality. I don’t know. It all comes across as pretty sloppy.
Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point opens today in theaters.
FILM: CHRISTMAS EVE IN MILLER’S POINT
DIRECTED BY: TYLER TAORMINA
STARRING: MATLIDA FLEMING, MARIA DIZZIA, BEN SHENKMAN
RATING: 2 out of 4 stars
By Dan Pal
It’s early November. That must mean it’s holiday movie season…right? Apparently so. Well, here’s one that I don’t think will be on everyone’s list to watch. It has so much potential but so many flaws. Christmas in Miller’s Point begins as a fairly traditional Christmas movie about a family gathering on December 24th. What it morphs into is an unfocused portrait of a myriad of characters before attempting to become something between Dazed and Confused and Superbad.
There’s a huge cast here including Michael Cera, who produced the film, a daughter of Martin Scorsese, and a son of Steven Spielberg. Not bad, eh? Don’t get too excited because none of them have much chance to stand out among this insanely large bunch of actors. At the beginning, one family, led by Ben Shenkman and Maria Dizzia, are on their way to the large celebration. Their son stares out the window, upside down, and we see his view of all the decorated houses along the way. When they arrive, we see his perspective of all the big personalities greeting him at the door. The scene is chaotic and fairly realistic to anyone who’s ever experienced a holiday celebration with aunts and uncles. It’s an interesting start, but then the point of view constantly shift to other characters. The problem is it changes so many times and there are so many characters that we never really get to know any of them very well.
The plot description suggests that the primary focus is on the house being sold. As such, we’d expect a certain air of sentimentality but the plot drifts so aimlessly between other brief narrative strands that we don’t get a chance to feel much about that seemingly very important detail. Instead we get an uncle discussing the novel he is writing, kids playing video games, a walk out for a fire engine parade, and so on. Later, the teens go out on the town mixing with a bunch of other teens that we haven’t met before and they attempt to get into a series of hijinks, including buying beer and hooking up for sex. (It’s like the Christmas Dazed and Confused.)
This is where Michael Cera comes in. He is a cop who drives around town with his partner, played by Gregg Turkington. They seem to be fairly ineffective at their jobs, but more than that they sit with pretty deadpanned expressions on their faces for most of their scenes. They have one big, awkward conversation late in the film, which I won’t spoil, but suffice to say it is directed as if David Lynch stepped in to create a new scene for one of his films or Twin Peaks (which Michael Cera appeared in for a couple of equally unusual scenes.) They’re not exactly the wacky cops we saw played by Bill Hader and Seth Rogen in Superbad, but it’s probably not an accident that seventeen years later, Cera has taken on an authority role while the kids are out doing stupid things.
At times the dialogue feels somewhat improvised, which doesn’t always work as there are a few uncomfortable pauses in a few scenes. It is probably the editor that should take some blame for that. In general, the editing could be tightened and the running time could be cut by about fifteen minutes. There’s just too much going on that it’s hard to keep track of who is who, how they are related to each other, and why we witness some of these scenes.
Cinematography is also a mixed bag of those interesting child point of view shots and others using what appear to be fish-eye and other lenses that distort some of the images. These choices seem random and inconsistent.
It’s too bad the film is so messy because there are some elements that could be expanded and made the focus of a whole other better movie. One of the boys seems to be a loner and spends a lot of his time upstairs. Why? We never really find out. There’s a hint of a relationship between two teenaged girls, played by Francesca Scorsese and an underutilized Elsie Fisher (Eighth Grade, Barry.) That also remains unfinished as a plot point.
Yes, the film is filled with some of the scenes that are often found in other Christmas movies, such as everyone eating, opening gifts, watching old home videos, and engaging in idle chit chat. But then we get the confounding use of holiday music mixed with pop songs from the 1960s. It’s not clear why the music is so nostalgic since few of the characters were around during that time. For much of the film, we might think the celebration is taking place in an earlier era what with the music, phones with cords, and older cars. However, kids playing video games and flip phones…that happened later. Perhaps the director wanted to give the film a timeless quality. I don’t know. It all comes across as pretty sloppy.
Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point opens today in theaters.