Half Of This Movie Gets That Holiday Season Feeling Just Right

I see Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point
as a combination of two storytelling instincts, the first of which is, unsurprisingly, the Christmas movie. This is one of those not just set around the holiday, but about it, and scenes of family togetherness (both fuzzy and prickly) resonate beyond their moment. The other, however, is the snapshot ensemble movie, in which the moment is everything. We’re with these people for one night of their lives, and the point is just to be with them, share this experience, and find meaning wherever we decide to see it.

A curious union of generality and specificity that, when mixed well, I found potent. Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point has long stretches that feel well-drawn, in the manner of the best snapshots, while also tapping into the concentrated nostalgia that is Christmas. Not all stretches have a firm grip on that magic, though, and my admiration was far more tempered by the end than I would have guessed halfway through. Still, as an entry point to this year’s holiday season, I can comfortably recommend it.

Christmas Eve In Miller’s Point Gets The Holiday Feeling Right

And Makes A Case For Where It Actually Comes From

The film begins as four members of the extended Balsano family drive to Kathleen’s (Maria Dizzia) childhood home on Long Island, and there are already signs of friction between her and Emily (Matilda Fleming), her teenage daughter. These four are locked into our memory as a family unit, but once we arrive, we’re thrown into a chaos of faces, all happily and noisily enjoying each other’s company. Writer-director Tyler Thomas Taormina and co-writer Eric Berger see no need to establish who belongs to whom from the outset, and gradually sussing those relationships out is part of the fun.

It’s also key to what the film does best. Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point immerses us in this gathering without a surrogate, varying the perspective to give us pieces of this evening from multiple family members. We experience the elements of tradition we expect from a Christmas movie by how people react to things – holidays are repetitive occasions. That elderly aunt always falls asleep in odd places; that one uncle is always annoying about the cooking; someone always brings that one lazy appetizer and gets grief for it.

But repetition, Taormina shows us, is also a way to measure change. Each year, a parade of firetrucks strung with colored lights drives through this neighborhood, and everyone goes out to stand in the cold to watch them. In the moments before, we get the adult perspective: eager but impatient, and amusingly pessimistic, as if a few seconds’ delay means this is finally the year they don’t show up. When they drive by, they’re shot with childlike wonder. We sometimes see through the eyes of a girl wearing diffraction glasses, so the trucks pass as a blur of kaleidoscopic bloom.

Here lies the benefit of the snapshot storytelling approach. The event may be the same, year-in and year-out, but the eyes watching it are not. Taormina’s movie calls attention to how Christmas is as much a time of change as of constancy. That elderly aunt wasn’t always elderly; that one uncle won’t always be healthy enough to do all the cooking. If you don’t go in knowing it’s set in the early 2000s, you might be thrown by remnants from earlier eras that naturally accrue in a grandmother’s home. All at once, this night is timeless and of its moment.

The most critical plot thread of Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point surfaces when the matriarch’s four children, the anchors of this family, meet to discuss the elephant in the room. Their mother’s health is failing. Currently, the burden falls on one brother and his family who live in this house with her, but she will soon need around-the-clock care. He pushes for a retirement home, to the clear dismay of his brother. He also informs them that they’re considering selling this house and moving to the city. Whatever happens, this Christmas Eve celebration is laced with melancholic impermanence.

In The Second Half, The Movie Takes Its Eye Off The Ball

A Shift In Focus Really Didn’t Work For Me

As you can probably tell, the family sections of this movie captured my attention. The pairing of immersive filmmaking with performances that feel very natural really worked for me, and I felt very tuned into what Taormina was going for thematically. He conjures up that holiday season feeling and tries to dig into what it really is, and he makes some genuine headway. But Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point takes a bit of a swerve when Emily and her cousin Michelle (Francesca Scorsese) sneak out to meet up with friends and the frame around this snapshot widens.

We meet new groups of characters and are dropped into new locations, experiencing the atmosphere at the youth hotspot bagel joint and the tender awkwardness of a choose-your-partner ritual at the local lovers’ lane. In a film with a general emphasis on teen life, I may have appreciated these scenes more. Here, the greater scope came at the cost of focus. I couldn’t grow attached to this new ensemble the way I had with the Balsanos, and I was less engaged in the action as a result.

Taormina and Berger mined their own experience for this movie, so this may well have been what they did on Christmas Eve as teenagers. But I had trouble keeping hold of the holiday throughline, and I expect I won’t be the only one. Still, when I look back on it, what I connected to wins out over what I didn’t – I have enjoyed sitting with its ideas, and there are a couple flourishes that will stick with me. Christmas movies churn out at an alarming rate this time of year, but few will be as thoughtful as this one.

Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point releases in theaters on November 8. The film is 106 minutes long and is rated PG-13 for strong language, teen drinking, some suggestive material and smoking.

6/10

Pros

• Well-executed version of the snapshot storytelling style
• A very thoughtful Christmas movie that captures that holiday feeling
• Occasional stylistic flourishes really connect

Cons

• Mileage may vary on the second-half swerve in focus