Christmas Eve in Miller's Point
Tyler Taormina’s ensemble comedy-drama is not your standard Christmas fare and is one of the most individual movies of 2024.
Image courtesy of Vertigo Releasing.
The title of this film by Tyler Taormina hardly suggests anything out of the ordinary especially when its release date is only slightly early for the festive season. It is indeed the case that this film is all about a family gathering that occurs on a Christmas Eve when snow is falling. But, regardless of that, Taormina’s film, his second feature, is a work of quite remarkable individuality and one of the most unusual to appear this year.
Co-written by Taormina and Eric Berger, the film begins conventionally with Kathleen (Maria Dizzia) and her husband Lenny (Ben Shenkman) driving to Long Island with their daughter Emily (Matilda Fleming) and their son Andrew (Justin Longo). Their destination is the home of Kathleen's mother, an elderly widow (Mary Reistetter), who is looked after by Kathleen's older brother, Matt (John J Trischetti Jr). On arrival the house is already full of family members among them Kathleen’s sister Elyse (Maria Carucci), her husband Ronald (Steve Alleva), another brother, Ray (Tony Savino), and among Emily's age group her cousin Michelle (Francesca Scorsese).
But what makes this unusual is the fact that the three generations of the Balcano family gathered to celebrate Christmas are essentially portrayed as a group. Grandma may be the oldest but the next generation includes her adult children and their spouses and we see too a large number of their offspring, both teenagers such as Emily and Michelle and a whole range of younger kids. Normally films centred on family celebrations set up a narrative in which, successfully or otherwise, an attempt is made to identify each character clearly to avoid the audience becoming confused. But not so here where the focus is first and foremost on the gathering itself. Equally surprising is the virtual absence of any plot beyond the fact that some people believe that the stage has been reached when the house should be sold and grandma placed in a care home. Even when a film features a limited time scale – and this one is true to its title covering only the events of one day leading into night – it is rare to incorporate so little dramatic development.
From the outset the audience is challenged to decide exactly what it is that this film is offering. It opens with an array of Christmas lights and its soundtrack will provide a whole range of festive music and pop songs. It would seem that what we are viewing is an Italian-American family living in the early 2000s but many of the songs come from an earlier area - golden oldies you could say - and one soon comes to feel that this is less a portrait of a particular Christmas than a recollection, a memory indeed, of Christmases gone by. As is so often the case memory favours the good things and plays down the bad and Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point presents its festive glow and its family togetherness in a spirit that may be nostalgic but avoids being sentimental. Those undertones such as what is best for grandma are present to remind us of tensions and problems beneath the surface. When it comes to using a recording by Frank Sinatra, the song chosen is ‘Garden in the Rain’ which despite its upbeat last words carries a touch of sadness and the only classical piece included is ‘Sarabande No. 2’ by Satie. In the absence of a story, we are encouraged to see this film as a view of life which through the presence of family members who range in age from childhood to old age suggests without undue emphasis early aspirations and hopes that lead to lives not necessarily fulfilled and then to death. The surface of the film may at times suggest a commercial Christmas film but there is always a sense of an underlying sophistication not to be expected in such a seasonal piece.
If I had to seek a link between this film and the work of another filmmaker, it would be a British director: the late Terence Davies and in particular his rich evocations of his childhood in Liverpool and of that city’s community spirit in those times. Those days are viewed by him with immense affection regardless of their downsides and accompanied by a sense of something subsequently lost. The family members here may not always be clearly differentiated but they emerge as real people nevertheless and Taormina obviously cares for his characters and never sends them up. He’s sympathetic too to a trio of local youths encountered and looked down on (one of them being played by Sawyer Spielberg). The presence in the cast of Martin Scorsese’s daughter and Steven Spielberg's son might seem to call for special comment but in fact this is a film in which the cast play as an ensemble and do so admirably.
While Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point should be seen and appreciated as an intriguingly unusual work, it is not without clear weaknesses. Outside the house we have scenes showing two gay cops on duty circling around any admission of their possible attraction for one another. It is no fault of Michael Cera and Gregg Turkington in these roles that these two characters feel out of place coming across not as real people but as figures belonging in some comic sketch. Furthermore, so much of the film gains from the contrast between the family members in terms of age and experience that something is definitely lost when the last quarter comes close to concentrating exclusively on the adolescents and their late-night partying. But, if those elements disappoint, we nevertheless have here a film so different from anything else on our screens that every keen cinemagoer should be anxious to see it and to decide for themselves exactly what it is that Tyler Taormina is expressing in this extraordinary mosaic of a movie.
MANSEL STIMPSON
Cast: Matilda Fleming, Francesca Scorsese, Maria Dizzia, Michael Cera, Ben Shenkman, Chris Lazzaro, Leo Chan, Sawyer Spielberg, Elsa Fisher, Gregg Turkington, Mary Reistetter, Tony Savino, Steve Alleva, John J. Trischetti Jr, Maria Carucci, Justin Longo, Brendan Burt, Grege Morris.
Dir Tyler Taormina, Pro Tyler Taormina, Krista Minto, David Croley Broyles, Duncan Sullivan, Michael Cera, Michael Davis, Kevin Anton, Eric Berger, David Entin and Rob Rice, Screenplay Tyler Taormina and Eric Berger, Ph Carson Lund, Pro Des Paris Peterson, Ed Kevin Anton, Costumes Kimberly Odenthal.
Omnes Films/Magnify/Crypto Castle Productions/Puente Films/Tip-Top Productions/Dweck Productions-Vertigo Releasing.
107 mins. USA. 2024. US Rel: 8 November 2024. UK Rel: 15 November 2024. Cert. PG-13.
