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This Christmas
R1 - America - Sony Pictures Home Entertainment Review written by and copyright: Jeremiah Chin (20th December 2008). |
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The Film
 Holiday movies are a particularly tricky genre as there’s an expectation of what a holiday movie looks like based upon some idea of what the holidays should look like; meaning the family gets together grievances are aired and everyone’s okay by the end. Though often it’s more about the incredible twist in that kind of formula that brings it all together; “Die Hard” (1988) basically follows formula, except puts incredible action and terrorists between McClane and a holiday with his distant wife and children. The twist doesn’t always have to be so extreme as blowing up Nakatomi Plaza, but that extra something can help keep the film from just being too typical of the holiday family movie. While “This Christmas” (2007) relies upon the typical formula for the holiday family movie, it manages to rise just barely above the average even though it doesn’t do such a dramatic twist or change. In typical holiday fashion, “This Christmas” follows the Whitfield family as they all gather at their mother, Ma’Dere's (Loretta Devine) home for the holidays. As Ma’Dere and her boyfriend Joe Black (Delroy Lindo) get ready for the incoming family, they aren’t quite ready for the tensions the holiday season will bring for the family as each child seems to bring their troubles home for the holidays. Ma’Dere’s oldest son Quentin (Idris Elba) returns home after 4 years of absence, resents Joe for trying to take the place of his father and has some bookies hounding him for the money he owes them. Lisa (Regina King) is dealing with a cheating husband and having trouble asserting herself in that relationship while dealing with some issues with her sister. Of course the rest of the family is running into problems too like Claude (Columbus Short) who runs into trouble with the law and has a white girlfriend he hasn’t told his family about. Each family member has their own personal drama to deal with, but with a holiday movie of course all the dirty laundry gets aired out and everyone’s going to have their say. First and foremost from a character perspective, the movie rises above some of the more stereotypical black family movie images as the mother figure of the film isn’t limited to her role as mother exclusively. Rather Ma’Dere’s role as mother is tightly woven in with her relationship with Senior, the father of her children who left to pursue music (and doesn’t appear in the film), as well as her relationship with Joe Black, in turn there’s a subplot related to her role as a business woman as well running and owning a local dry cleaners. It’s a far more complicated image than what often appears in other films, which is generally true of the entire cast. Most of the characters are well developed, well acted and, well, complex in their own way; which is surprising for a fairly brief holiday movie that could have simply spent the whole film dealing with the season or the holiday, but instead does a good job of covering the many siblings, their characters and conflicts within the film. Unfortunately the very sweet happy ending kind of condemns the film to mediocrity, there’s more than a healthy supply of dramatic speeches that resolve problems and bring the family together. While these work for bringing the movie to a head, and while they can be powerful in their own way, none of them really stand out for me to make enough of an impact to bring the movie out of the general holiday film movie. The script and directing by Preston A. Whitmore II help contribute to this as they do a good job of keeping what’s going on moving, keep the story together and keep all of the ideas together, but not really rising above what’s there. Overall it’s a good film with some interesting characters that hits al of the right notes for a family Christmas movie, and even tries to go a bit beyond with some interesting characterizations that defy the traditional types of portrayals of black women, however it never moves to the next level of engagement for me as a viewer. Instead it’s a movie that’s simply nice enough to watch and I don’t regret watching, but don’t really feel the need to re watch.
Video
Presented in 2.40:1 anamorphic widescreen, the transfer on “This Christmas” is good enough to keep a lot of the colors and visuals moving well however some scenes the lighting and the contrast seems a little washed out. The directing isn’t super extraordinary, but the transfer gives the visuals a good stage, though sometimes it feels a bit too muted.
Audio
There are tracks in English and French Dolby Digital 5.1 surround, the 5.1 track brings the sound in well, keeping the levels between the dialogue and the bountiful soundtrack together well. There’s never any reall pops or drouning out of the audio, and for the most part it’s fairly clear, though it doesn’t really move that much, nor does it try to. Optional English, French and Spanish subtitles are also available.
Extras
“This Christmas” includes an audio commentary, a couple of deleted/extended scenes, a featurette, a music video and bonus trailers, all described below: First up is the cast audio commentary with Regina King, Sharon Leal and Lauren London. The commentary gives a comical glance or some interesting facts about different scenes, but for the most part there are a lot of long pauses between comments, there were sometimes I forgot the commentary track was running until King, Leal or London popped back in with a new comment. Next are the deleted and extended scenes, 2 in all: - “Uninvited Guests” runs for 1 minute and 41 seconds. Mo and Dude sit down and eat with Devean as he tries to figure out where they’re from. - “Extended Whitfield Family Album” runs for 3 minutes and 53 seconds. Baby works on his Christmas present for the family as everyone sleeps in this extended scene. The new additions are mostly just Baby putting the album together or a few insert shots that lengthen the scene out just a little bit. “Making 'This Christmas' Special” runs for 11 minutes and 35 seconds. This making of featurette speaks with the producers, writer/director and actors about putting the film together as well as about the story and characters that go into the film. The actors arde interesting to hear from, it’s a bit odd hearing Elba’s real british accent considering how natural his accent sounds in the film. For the most part it’s a lot of talking about how great the actors are, which they deserve, though there’s some good behind the scenes footage to supplement the different interviews. Finally there’s a “This Christmas” music video performed by Chris Brown, which runs for 3 minutes and 45 seconds. The music video by Chris Brown is much more of the Chris Brown that people know, with all the singing and dancing that people are used to. The bonus trailers are: - “The Pink Panther 2” runs for 1 minute and 42 seconds. - “Hancock” runs for 1 minute and 45 seconds. - “The Perfect Holiday” runs for 1 minute and 24 seconds. - “Blu-ray Disc is High Definition!” ad runs for 2 minutes and 37 seconds. - “Center Stage 2: Turn It Up” runs for 33 seconds. - “Fireproof” runs for 33 seconds. - “The Note” runs for 39 seconds. - “Not Easily Broken” runs for 2 minutes and 1 second. - “Stomp The Yard” runs for 33 seconds. - “First Sunday” runs for 33 seconds. - "Tobacco Free California" PSA runs for 35 seconds.
Overall
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