Screenhead

Okay, folks, being as Christmas decorations have been up in stores since like September and Thanksgiving is mere days away, some of this year’s crop of Christmas movies have burst on to the scene.  And naturally, some are better than others.

Today’s review target, The Christmas Clause, is fair enough if a bit on the predictable side.

In this one, beleaguered mother of three Sophie Kelly is having a tough time with Christmas–and her life.  Her kids are complete monsters (the youngest daughter poured hot chocolate into a bag containing her new holiday party dress for the reason that she wasn’t going to get a puppy from Santa.) and in a moment of absolute weakness, she wishes for the life of a former friend from college.  Her new life is filled with glamour and excitement, but at the same time, a lack of overall satisfaction as she discovers what “she” did to get all that glamour and excitement.  Now, longing for her OLD life back, she makes a push to get it back…but it’ll be a lot tougher than she expected.

Yes, this is the kind of thing we’ve all seen before.  A little more of that It’s A Wonderful Life sort of thing that seems to crop up in December’s movies like bad fruitcake and crowded malls.  And yet, at the same time, it’s also endearing, like the Charlie Brown Christmas special that never goes away, that you watch every year even though you already knows how it ends, and how it starts, and how Linus will manage to NOT flub his lines, despite the fact that he’d been nervous about it all episode.

The Christmas Clause is your Christmas sweater.  That one special treat you only get at Christmas, even if you’re not that fond of it.  You watch it or read it or eat it anyway because you remember how it felt when you first saw it. Or read it, ate it or whatever.

Don’t expect this to be a great movie, or even an original movie.  What it is is a Christmas movie and that’s all it needs to be.

The Screenhead Ten Scale gives this predictable, straightforward Christmas pudding a six out of ten for being good at what it does, but ignoring the fact that it probably shouldn’t have done it in the first place.

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