Almost Christmas follows its formula to slightly above average results

A scene from Almost Christmas. Image courtesy Universal Pictures.

My reaction to Almost Christmas is a little scattered and very contradictory. As a piece of filmmaking there isn't a lot going for it; it's a film easy to nitpick for its contrivances and some rather notable script problems. At the same time, well, I kind of enjoyed it. I got a few laughs out of it and a couple of the subplots are interesting enough to maintain interest through the lesser stories. It’s fine enough, a watchable film with just a hint of interesting to keep it a skosh above average.

It would be nice to have a little more vigor for defending this film, but in the end writer/director David E. Talbert dedicated his film to maintaining the standards of the wicked dire holiday film genre. These are the films in which a family or a group of friends come together after or amid a tragedy to a loved one for the season. Think Family Stone, The Best Man Holiday, and similar films in which loads of bickering occur during a season in which family and/or friends come first. The films are guaranteed to be corny as all heck, skimming the surface for pathos without diving deep into character development while relying on clichés to carry the heavy emotional lifting. That flaw is by design, as these films focus on so many characters none of them receive an adequate amount of time to develop, if any time at all to become proper characters. (Poor Nicole Ari Parker is given so little to do it’s easy to forget she's even there.) Almost Christmas never wants to escape these issues. The film has to fit in time for Parker, Danny Glover, Mo'Nique, Gabrielle Union, Omar Epps, Romany Malco, J. B. Smoove, Kimberly Elise and Jessie Usher to develop their characters and find ways for those characters to grow from their experience. A good cliché is the easy answer, so every problem – from mild drug addictions and sisterly feuds to infidelity and political moral uncertainty – is solvable through just a few days of family time and bonding. Almost Christmas is not an intellectual exam; you're brain will be more focused on the tropes and figuring out why the middle of an election campaign occurs five days before Christmas.

Yet there are a few things “Almost Christmas” does right, or at least well enough to make the less interesting tidbits go down a little smoother. Talbert shows a knack for filming a good sequence, opening the film with a time lapse akin to the infamous tearjerker from Up and tossing in scenes of dancing and a touch football game that feel moderately organic. It's as if these moments, while still attached to the clichés around them, offer a modicum of grounding for the cinematic problems that crop up. The dancing scene in particular is organically silly, the kind of moment that feels common enough for a viewer to connect with the characters, at least for this one moment. It helps Talbert filled his film with a collection of ringers who can sell the malarkey in front of them. Union and Epps in particular exhibit a terrific rapport with each other, selling their tired plotline through force of personality alone. Union also clicks well with Elise as a pair of warring sisters who have the most interesting story in Almost Christmas. That Mo'Nique and Smoove are around to give each other grief makes things a little more fun, as does Glover doing the old man routine he's utilized since Lethal Weapon. Almost Christmas' cast is good and game, and that goes a long way to making this film moderately worthwhile.

I think that is really the selling point for Almost Christmas. It's an earnest film that Talbert clearly wants to be endearing and wants to connect with its audience, despite the narrative confines it opts to trap itself in. Talbert isn't the most talented writer or director, but he cares enough for his viewers to want to relate to them somehow without condescending. Almost Christmas is not a film I would want to watch again, nor is it one that will retain much memory beyond this holiday season. This is pretty solid for what it is though, and in this case that’s enough.

Rating: Three out of Five Stars

Click here to see the trailer.

Rating: PG-13

Run time: 112 minutes

Genre: Comedy

Ask Away

Target audience: People wanting to get a jump on their holiday movie splurging.

Take the whole family?: Wouldn't recommend it for kiddos – the content is a little too adult at times and not appealing to that demographic – but a year or two within the rating is safe.

Theater or Netflix?: It's a little too early to see a holiday film, so wait to stream it.

Any truly bothersome issues?: It's Romany Malco's election subplot that keeps bugging me. What doesn't make sense is the timing for the whole thing, given a Congressional election would take place well before or well after the holiday season. The film never mentions a special election, so it really feels out of place for him to focus on a campaign for nothing. Plus it further pushes Nicole Ari Parker to the backburner.

Watch this as well?: The best holiday coming together film of this millennium is the French film A Christmas Tale, which adds a lot more bite to the proceedings than similar American films. Christmas Vacation is always good for a few laughs, and you can flag down the ridiculous but watchable The Best Man Holiday for some laugh. And speaking of Omar Epps, catch the sublime romantic comedy Love & Basketball.