Why do people love A Christmas Story so much? My assertion is that the movie feels like you’re watching a home movie, perhaps the best home movie, ever made. Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point knows this too, and goes for those same, nostalgic vibes the 1983 classic was going for. It doesn’t always get there, but at its best moments, Miller’s Point might gets near the ballpark, and feels like a warm cup of over sugared cocoa you only get right before you’re about to open a bunch of presents.
In Miller’s Point, we’re in the car with Kathleen (Maria Dizzia) and Lenny (Ben Shenkman) and their daughter Emily (Matilda Flemming) on their way to the big Christmas Eve gathering. Everyone’s there: Emily’s cousin Michelle (Francesca Scorcese), the same age as her, Uncle Ray (Tony Savino), Cousin Bruce (Chris Lazzaro), Uncle Ronald (Steve Alleva), Aunt Bev (Grege Morris), and the 900 or so others that somehow fit into this home, ready to overflow with Christmas spirit. In the even that happens, officers Gibson (Michael Cera) and Brooks (Gregg Turkington) will be patrolling, seeing what happens as the booze continues to flow.
Man, Tyler Thomas Taormina got SO close. There’s a way to write his film where no one really leaves the house for too long. When we’re bunched up inside that Christmas Eve House, Miller’s Point hit me with the nostalgia wave so hard I almost couldn’t breathe. Italian Christmas Eve celebrations are pretty close to this one, with only slight variations here and there. Generations split off, as the young cousins go into rooms and play with various toys, old cousins eyeroll, wishing they were with their friends while on their phones, adults gather and discuss family matters, the strange cousin with a tough year maybe goes a little too hard, happy to be in a comfortable place he’s safe in, red and green M&Ms and the most delicious full table of food you’ve ever seen. I’ve lived all of this multiple years over, and clearly triple T has as well somewhere near New York. The soundtrack is awash with 50s-70s Italian classics that accompany these montages that make this Christmas untethered from time (I think it’s sometime around 2004, but it doesn’t matter), like all holidays usually feel. It’s not all happy fun either: it’s this crazy mixture of weird, exhausting, tense, funny, etc that ultimately leaves you feeling, just, satisfied, after a carb heavy meal.
But the last 30ish minutes we leave the house and go on a journey with Emily and the malcontent teens who just want to spend time together. There’s too many characters here for this part of Miller’s Point to hit as beautifully as the first hour did, but it’s not a total disaster either. There’s wonderful moments capturing the beginning of one of those movie snowfalls any winter kid has experienced around the holidays, plus the aimless driving and hanging around your crushes rings true. However, with 30ish kids in the movie plus various business owners and the cops, the movie gets a little lost before we eventually get back home for the ending.
But hey, no Christmas is ever as perfect as it is in our memory. Triple T and his incredible nepo baby cast really deliver the goods, showing that even kids of famous people have incredible Christmas memories like the rest of us. And, that there’s something odd about the police in Miller’s Point. Can we check what’s going on up there to make sure they’re not as lovesick and aimless as the movie makes them out to be?