One of my favorite movies is The Family Man, with Nicholas Cage. Family for Christmas is basically a gender-reversed clone of this classic. That's not necessarily a bad thing, though. I love the message that both of these films provide, namely, that marriage and family are more important and ultimately more fulfilling than a high-powered career. In the case of Family for Christmas, you also have the message that being a full-time wife and mother can be a more fulfilling alternative to being a career woman. Sadly, our society today either denigrates stay-at-home moms and makes women feel that a career outside the home is more fulfilling, or promotes the fiction that a woman can have both a career and a family and do both equally well. Life is all about choices, and being a stay-at-home mom is a perfectly valid choice, and, very often, the best choice.
This movie was blessed with the inestimable talents of Lacey Chabert. She is always warm, cute, engaging and likable. The character of Hannah could have been quite unlikable in the hands of a lesser actress, but Lacey makes us like her and sympathize with her. Tyron Leitso did an adequate job of portraying her warm, patient, good-guy husband Ben, though he could have been interchanged with any number of other actors. I wish that Lacey and Tyron had had more chemistry. I think the script was largely to blame for that. I really wish that they had shown more of an evolution of Lacey's character Hannah's feelings for Ben, with her coming to realize that she truly does love this guy who she had jilted in her other life.
The movie does a good job portraying Hannah's alternate life and her newfound relationships. You enjoy watching her grow to love those people and that life, and you really feel like that's the life she truly should have, rather than the successful-but-shallow life she chose in her other reality.
There were a couple of things about this movie I didn't like. I thought the 2 kids were kind of bratty when they were lecturing their mom about not being a good mother for such things as buying cookies for their class instead of baking them. They should have shown concern for her abnormal behavior, rather than judgment. I also found it pretty unbelievable when she impromptu takes over live on camera for the incapacitated reporter. I'm no expert, but aren't those reporters lines normally scripted, and don't they normally read them from a teleprompter? Also, the idea that she could just arbitrarily designate her assistant to be the reporter on her news story was ludicrous. Those are two totally different job descriptions, and decisions about who gets the job of being a reporter are made by the TV news management, not one of their reporters.
One more nitpick. Hannah's comment, when she was proposing that their family move into the city because it would be better for the kids and that the schools there were better, was just stupid. Anyone who is actually a parent would much prefer to raise and school their kids in the suburbs than the city, particularly a decaying city like San Francisco. I heard (not sure if this is really true, but it sounds true) that there are more drug addicts in San Francisco than children under 18. Just saying.
Anyway, I liked Family for Christmas, and can most heartily endorse its message. Despite its few rough edges, it was a fun, heartwarming movie.
This movie was blessed with the inestimable talents of Lacey Chabert. She is always warm, cute, engaging and likable. The character of Hannah could have been quite unlikable in the hands of a lesser actress, but Lacey makes us like her and sympathize with her. Tyron Leitso did an adequate job of portraying her warm, patient, good-guy husband Ben, though he could have been interchanged with any number of other actors. I wish that Lacey and Tyron had had more chemistry. I think the script was largely to blame for that. I really wish that they had shown more of an evolution of Lacey's character Hannah's feelings for Ben, with her coming to realize that she truly does love this guy who she had jilted in her other life.
The movie does a good job portraying Hannah's alternate life and her newfound relationships. You enjoy watching her grow to love those people and that life, and you really feel like that's the life she truly should have, rather than the successful-but-shallow life she chose in her other reality.
There were a couple of things about this movie I didn't like. I thought the 2 kids were kind of bratty when they were lecturing their mom about not being a good mother for such things as buying cookies for their class instead of baking them. They should have shown concern for her abnormal behavior, rather than judgment. I also found it pretty unbelievable when she impromptu takes over live on camera for the incapacitated reporter. I'm no expert, but aren't those reporters lines normally scripted, and don't they normally read them from a teleprompter? Also, the idea that she could just arbitrarily designate her assistant to be the reporter on her news story was ludicrous. Those are two totally different job descriptions, and decisions about who gets the job of being a reporter are made by the TV news management, not one of their reporters.
One more nitpick. Hannah's comment, when she was proposing that their family move into the city because it would be better for the kids and that the schools there were better, was just stupid. Anyone who is actually a parent would much prefer to raise and school their kids in the suburbs than the city, particularly a decaying city like San Francisco. I heard (not sure if this is really true, but it sounds true) that there are more drug addicts in San Francisco than children under 18. Just saying.
Anyway, I liked Family for Christmas, and can most heartily endorse its message. Despite its few rough edges, it was a fun, heartwarming movie.