An unashamedly nostalgic ode to the season, Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point is a hot-chocolate-with-slippers-on kind of film.
★★★★☆
Christmas is about nostalgia. Every year is coloured by the previous, prompting comments on increasingly dry turkey or perhaps that hilarious game of charades from 2015 which can never be surpassed no matter the comical effort. Then there are the memories of childhood Christmases, images of perfection setting an impossibly high standard of festivity. This nostalgia for the best times is one reason (alongside the inevitable Scrabble-based breakdown) that Christmas is always more stressful than remembered.
Tyler Taormina’s Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point clearly doesn’t share this sentiment. Doused in a psychedelic array of Christmas lights and stirred by jukebox classics, Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point leans into those nostalgic Christmases holidaymakers aspire to recreate, relishing in the minutia of the festive season as a low-key family drama plays out behind the tinsel.
It’s the annual Christmas gathering of the Balsano family in their ancestral home. All the familiar players of an Italian American gathering are wheeled out—the doting aunties, the stogie pinching uncles—all in place to celebrate the most wonderful time of the year. However, the declining mental state of the family matriarch overshadows the celebration for the adults—providing the perfect distraction for teenagers Emily (Matilda Fleming) and Michelle (Francesca Scorsese) to sneak off for hijinks in the snow.
If you watched the second season of The Bear, you’ll remember the explosive Christmas episode ‘Fishes’. Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point utilises similar ingredients, but cooks them on a lower heat. There are no screaming matches between relations; instead, the Balsano stresses simmer gently and never come to a boil. Consequently, the viewer is left with a tepid drama, carried by its heavy dosage of festivity. The film’s gentleness is almost dissatisfying, but that nostalgic jolliness is enough to keep the film enjoyable.
The cinematography is where Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point shines. Every trinket and indulgent finger food is caressed by the camera, like an M&S Christmas advert. Equally, though, there is something synthetic about the visuals. The Christmas lights are primarily shown in motion, whipping past the camera in rainbow fractals like something out of 2001: A Space Odyssey. Taormina crafts a simulacrum of Christmas, a mind’s eye construction of what Christmas looks like indifferent to the realities of the season. While easy on the eye, every adult knows that the festive perfection on display here is simply unattainable.Gloomier thoughts are fleeting though, as the piece is too tender to achieve anything too heartbreaking.
On the gloomier side, Tony Savino’s Uncle Ray is a closeted writer and, although his story goes down a treat, there is a sense that this hand-gesturing uncle won’t achieve his dreams. Similarly, Lenny (Ben Shenkman) has a non-descript physical health condition which doesn’t show any sign of improvement with age. All the while, the family matriarch sits vacantly, a monolithic reminder of the oncoming issues facing the Balsanos. The piece is too tender to achieve anything really heartbreaking, though; dress all this woe in enough tinsel and the stresses of the family are minimised.
The second half of the film sees the teenagers carve their own story, hewing the piece in two. The gaggle of youngsters amble through various settings with the primary mission of scoring some beers. It’s an intimate but naïve portrait of a memorable night for the teens, underlined by a scene where they all profess their love for each other. Promises are made to stay together through college and beyond, a bittersweet scene for those that recognise such naivety.
As with the adults’ imminent stresses, Taormina isn’t interested in the inevitable disappointment of the kids. This film is about how special that night is for them, as it is about the joys of Christmas, nostalgia and all.
The Verdict
Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point is a richly nostalgic take on Christmas, an easily affable watch with piquant moments of melancholy. Summoning every bauble, Quality Street, and tinselled item possible to paint a picture-perfect yuletide portrait, it’s aggressively easy-going with tinges of sadness. It’s no cracker knick-knack, but sits inoffensively amid the sea of other heartwarming Christmas films available.
Words by Barney Nuttall
Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point is in cinemas now.
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