The following are five holiday (Thanksgiving/Christmas) movie choices (to watch at home).
I. Pieces of April
The low-budget Pieces of April (2003) features April Burns (Katie Holmes), a 21-year-old with a new (African-American) boyfriend. She’s not only the “black sheep” of her white suburban family but also estranged from them. The film’s tagline: She’s the one in every family.
Knowing that her mom is receiving treatment for late-stage breast cancer, April decides to ask her family to her little apartment—that happens to be in a poor neighborhood of New York—for Thanksgiving. Her parents (Oliver Platt and Patricia Clarkson), along with her brother, sister, and maternal grandmother drive from Pennsylvania, all the while regarding the pending reunion with suspicion and skepticism.
II. Home for the Holidays
In Home for the Holidays (1995) adult daughter Claudia (Holly Hunter) comes home to a dysfunctional Thanksgiving gathering. Among the other guests are her brother Tommy (Robert Downey, Jr.) who’s with an apparently new boyfriend (Dylan McDermott), her conservative sister, a nutty aunt, and an old male friend her mom Adele (Anne Bancroft) wants her to get to know again.
Claudia on the true meaning of this holiday: “Nobody means what they say on Thanksgiving, Mom. You know that. That’s what the day’s supposed to be all about, right? Torture.”
III. What’s Cooking?
The tagline of this holiday movie, What’s Cooking? (2000): Thanksgiving. A celebration of food, tradition and relative insanity.
What’s Cooking? may best be seen on a full stomach. In this Thanksgiving movie four different ethnically diverse households in a Los Angeles neighborhood are celebrating. Represented in the film are Vietnamese, Latino, Jewish, and African American families.
Sexual orientation figures into the mix along with other themes of diversity and intergenerational struggles. Kyra Sedgwick plays a lesbian who’s with her lover (Julianna Margulies) on the holiday.
IV. Krisha
Indie film Krisha (2015), definitely not a typical holiday movie, is a family affair in more than one way. First, of course, there’s the (somewhat fictional) family whose story it tells. Key words from various review headlines signal what lies in wait: black sheep, recovering alcoholic, dysfunctional clan, grueling reunion, emotional horror show of a family, not your ordinary family-holiday psychodrama.
Second, many of the cast are in fact family. Title character Krisha, in her 60’s, is played by the now highly lauded non-actor Krisha Fairchild, the aunt of the film’s writer/director Trey Edward Shults. Also featured in key roles are Trey’s mother (Robyn Fairchild) as his aunt, Trey as himself, and his grandmother (Billie Fairchild).
A couple other interesting facts: Krisha’s character is based on actual kin (though presumably not anyone who’s in the film), and both Trey’s mom and dad happen to be therapists in real life.
V. Everybody’s Fine
Everybody’s Fine (2009) stars Robert De Niro as Frank Goode, a recent widower who’s retired from his factory job where he coated telephone wires; the chemicals involved contributed to the development of a chronic illness. His four adult kids live in various locations across the country. Although he’d been expecting them to visit him at the holiday, each cancels.
Despite his doctor’s advice against traveling, Frank goes to see them. His first stop is New York City, where he expects to find his son the artist (Sam Rockwell). But he’s nowhere to be found, and Frank has to move on. This mystery pervades the subsequent interactions with each of his other kids.
He finds out from his two daughters (Kate Beckinsale, Drew Barrymore) that one of the main gaps in the relationships between him and them had to do with his specific parental role when they were growing up.
Great list!