From fractured family connections as siblings move out of state to teens finding their own Christmas memories away from family traditions, and from the relentless march of time to the security of tradition, Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point will divide audiences.
The older you get, the more Christmas is about memory. Memories from childhood, shared cultural experiences, and recollections of countless family gatherings, some joyful and others challenging. Memories make Christmas; they are the cement that holds it in place and the driving force that keeps it alive. Tyler Taormina’s Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point is a festive mosaic of memory that will take many by surprise, given its Hallmarkesque title. Even the trailer for Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point lulls us into thinking Taormina’s film is a standard all-American Christmas comedy/drama. But trust me, that couldn’t be further from the truth, as anyone who saw Taormina’s moody coming-of-age movie Ham on Rye (2019) will understand.
Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point explores the intergenerational experiences of Christmas, from childhood and adolescence to middle and old age, and how Christmas memories are formed, shaped, and drawn upon at each stage of our lives. Tyler Taormina’s atmospheric journey into memory centres on a Long Island family home that has long been the heart of a large Italian-American family’s Christmas memories; it is a house aunts, uncles, cousins, nephews and in-laws call home every Christmas, a place that holds every memory, good and bad, of an extended family changing through time. But this Christmas will be the last in this house owned by an ageing family matriarch who can no longer care for herself or the home.
From the outset, we, the audience, are a mere fly on the wall as Christmas Eve unfolds through snippets of conversation, beautifully framed memories, delicate and often fractious family relationships, childhood wonder and the need for teenage escape. Hanging over this celebration is a sense of finality, a feeling that something is shifting and changing, whether some family members like it or not. From fractured family connections as siblings move out of state to teens making their own Christmas memories away from family traditions, Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point is about the relentless march of time and the security of tradition.
With a cast including Francesca Scorsese, Elsie Fisher, Sawyer Spielberg, Tony Savino, Ben Shenkman and Matilda Fleming, each frame of Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point is designed to spark your own memories of Christmases past and present, as Taormina asks you to give yourself over to one hour and forty-six minutes of mutual remembrance. While this largely works, it has flaws: the comic interludes from two local cops, Gregg Turkington and Michael Cera. These scenes may be entertaining as Officer Gibson and Sergeant Brooks watch Christmas Eve unfold around them while hiding their feelings and memories under a blanket of duty, but they also feel manufactured compared to the rest of the movie. But even with this weakness, Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point is a fascinating and unique Christmas offering that defies simple genre labels.
Taormina opens his film with the line, “For the lost, may they find their way home on Christmas Eve.” It’s easy to assume Taormina is talking about those who have become isolated from their nearest and dearest over Christmas as they return home. But maybe he is talking about memory, and that even when Christmas changes, families separate, loved ones are lost, or society shifts, our collective and individual memories of Christmas often lead us home.
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