Almost Christmas

<<

Christmas 2017

>>

This title comes from last year's theatrical adaventures. I ended up wanting to revisit it though, as out of everything, it seemed to be the most... Christmassy from what I remember.

A retired auto engineer named Walter (Danny Glover) is a widower who lost his wife one year prior. He calls on his four grown-up children, Rachel (Gabrielle Union), Cheryl (Kimberly Elise), Christian (Romany Malco) and Evan (Jesse Usher) in hopes to have a nice, family Christmas together. However, family dysfunction gets in the way, and may just turn everything into a mess.

Despite it being pretty predictable and formulaic, having everything to do with family drama, it's not without some holiday charm and some humorous dialogue. I'd be lying if I said that there wasn't any warmth to it. There's a few scenes in this that make a family Christmas look like a lot of fun, and there's even a few bits that'll tug at your heartstrings. One such example is Walter trying all the way through the film to recreate his wife's wonderful sweet potato pie. That's touching enough, but without spoiling anything, it's the process he eventually gets to that's really quite sweet.

It's certainly not the end all be all of family Christmas movies, but it's warm, funny, and touching in small doses. It might not be one to watch with the kids either. Not that it's not family friendly enough, but it's certainly aimed at a more mature audience.

Overall, I'd say this film was kinda just bittersweet. When it has heart, it has a lot of heart, and it can make one smile. It's just too bad that so much of that heart is overshadowed by the dark and dysfunctional side of family get-togethers.

At first, I figured this was going to be an overall forgettable movie, but I found myself surprisingly wanting to revisit this one of the four major Christmas titles I saw last year for my old site. More than anything, it had to do with the memorable moments Danny Glover makes when he figures out how to make the sweet potato pie. Nothing else last year managed to stand out in such a way, so I'm happy to revisit some of the warmer moments in this.

It's just a nice, small Christmas movie for the holidays, but nothing to get hyped about.

3/5

---