Review of Almost Christmas (2016) by Movie M — 21 Aug 2017

There isn't anything necessarily terrible about "Almost Christmas", however it definitely isn't a classic holiday movie that will be talked about much. The story revolves around a family that is trying to get through the passing of the grandmother, and around how this dysfunctional family has to overcome broken relationships between each other in order to have an enjoyable christmas.

Even with that premise, you could tell that this movie is all over the place. There were about 5 or 6 different plots all happening at once, and whereas that sometimes might work in movies, it didn't really work in this one.

There was never really a time where the movie would focus in on one of those plots, and some of the people that you thought the movie would focus more on, they didn't go back to them until way later in the movie, and by that point I just lost interest in that plot.

The comedy was pretty good, I liked some of Mo'Nique's (Aunt May) lines, and I also liked JB Smoove (Lonnie), and his overall vibe that he brought to this movie. As a comedy, I enjoyed this movie, but as a drama, that's where this movie failed.

Almost all the drama just comes from the fact that the grandmother passed away, and although that is a tough circumstance, they didn't do anything except sulk and grieve about it, which didn't really leave me feeling anything because we never knew who the grandmother was besides the 5 minute opening montage.

All in all, "Almost Christmas" isn't a terrible movie, and does have some comedic potential in it, however it should not have been made into a dramedy, and is not worth watching.