This holiday feature brings tidings of great Christmas dinner authenticity.
In my past, I’ve had holiday traditions. I used to go my grandparents’ house after Church on Christmas Eve, celebrate at my house on Christmas Day, and then go to my other grandparents’ house later. This was all in the same area. But ever since the first pair of my grandparents passed away, their house was sold and we now celebrate the holidays at my house and later at my sister’s.
“Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point” tells the story of a Long Island Italian-American family, who are celebrating the holidays at their ancestral family home, and this could be their last year there. The grandma (Mary Reistetter) is deteriorating and decisions must be made about whether or not she should be placed in a retirement home. This is between her adult children: Ronald (Steve Alleva), Ray (Tony Savino), Elyse (Maria Carucci), and Kathleen (Maria Dizzia). So, I can easily understand the situation here, considering what I have gone through.
The best thing about this holiday comedy is the way it represents the authenticity of the holidays at a family home. What the relatives are like, what the kids are doing, and what they’re having for dinner. There’s no plot to work with, and maybe that’s usually how Christmas dinners are. I don’t remember having dinner with the director throwing me a script or shouting “Cut” when we say “Grace.”
We also get the young kids running around the house, and two of the family’s teenage girls Michelle (Francesca Scorsese) and Emily (Matilda Fleming) sneaking out with their friends. The usual teenage stuff regarding booze, one liners, and goofing around. There’s also a little girl who wears paper glasses, which make the lights look like this movie is part of a Gaspar Noe experience. And while the cinematography looks like it takes place in the 70s or 80s, with some resemblance to “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation,” it could be the 2000s since we get some cell phones of earlier brands.
You also get Michael Cera and Greg Turkington as two cops, who seem like Wes Anderson versions of the cops from “Superbad” (which you all know Cera was in). They drive their car with a dog licking an emotionless Cera, while Turkington casually and mellowly asks about making a pass at another cop. I can already tell by the way they’re placed on screen and how they talk that they would be worthy of a Wes Anderson movie. So imagine if he directed “Superbad.”
Co-written by Eric Berger and written and directed by Tyler Taormina (“Ham on Rye,” “Happer’s Comet”), “Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point” doesn’t have much character development, especially the teenagers who rely on tropes to get through the movie, but it does have its moments and it did remind me of my holiday traditions. And I like the way it’s told through the perspectives of an Italian-American family, because of how they use their words and personalities.
There are two holiday features out this weekend with tropes but through different perspectives. “The Best Christmas Pageant Ever” is a faith-based family comedy about very bad kids participating in an annual church play about the Nativity Story. And “Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point” is basically about nothing, but a family Christmas with a lot going on. This is an IFC Films entry, so it’s clear it doesn’t need to oversell itself or sing Christmas carols just to qualify itself as a holiday feature. Sometimes it can be a “Silent Night,” and sometimes it can bicker and screw around a bit. You’ll definitely need some wine at the table.