Review of The Fitzgerald Family Christmas (2012) by Christopher Llewellyn R — 23 Nov 2012

As with all other Edward Burns films I have seen, this movie had lots of clumsy bits. The writing was also hardly filled with scintillating bits of dialogue. And yet . . . there were moments of genuine feeling here, and better performances than I was expecting. By the end of the film, when the family decides to reconcile for Christmas, I actually found myself with a tear in my eye. But then . . . Burns had to almost ruin it with an ill-conceived and badly executed ending dinner scene, in which he tried to make a bad modern arrangement of "Veni Veni Emmanuel" do the emotional heavy lifting for him. Oh, well. That flub does not take away from what works, earlier.

If you like family dramas, enhanced with ethnic specificity, then you might just really enjoy the picture. Think "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" meets "In America," and be grateful that Burns has come a long way, as both a director and actor, since "The Brothers McMullen" and "She's the One." He's appealing, most of the other actors are appealing, and if you can ignore the missteps, you'll emerge after 110 minutes feeling pretty good.

A final note: this is a film that you can either choose to see in theaters, or watch on Video-on-Demand (VOD). As such, it is a potential harbinger of distribution models to come (though not the first film to try this out). Choose your platform, and see which you prefer.