Making Christmas
Times are difficult in America as due to the Depression salaries are tight and for Joel (Jace Mclean) it is getting to him. It is especially difficult as Christmas is coming and his young daughters have written to Santa asking for things which there is no way that Joel can afford. It starts to make Joel feel inferior as he feels he should be able to provide for his family.
"Mr. Christmas" reminds me of a few other Christmas movies I have watched which take us back in time to around WWII and into an American working class home. What we watch is a slice of what life was like back then and in this case we see how with times being hard Joel feels he is a failure as a husband and father because he isn't making enough money to provide for his family. The thing is that "Mr. Christmas" along with those other movies just don't seem to work for me and to be completely blunt I found watching this a bit of a chore despite knowing from the word go there would be a heart-warming side to this movie.
Now maybe my struggles with "Mr. Christmas" is that more often than not I prefer my Christmas movies to be a bit more commercial and easy going. It isn't even that this is hard to follow as this story of a father's struggles during the depression era are easy to follow. But for me there is something amiss when it comes to the movie and for me I put most of that down to connection. This is simply one of those movies where if you can connect with the era, the place, the sense of failure than the story works but if you can't you end up struggling to watch from afar.
What this all boils down to is that "Mr. Christmas" is one of those movies which might work if you feel some sort of connection to the characters, the era and the situation. But if you don't have that connection it ends up a weaker movie which struggles to draw you in and entertain.
Tags: Christmas Movies
