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Movie review: “This Christmas”
BY MAGGIE SCOTT
Mother love, family ties and holiday cheer are all put to the test by the strains, strifes, strivings and secrets of the children of Ma’Dere Whitfield (Loretta Devine) in the dramedy “This Christmas.”
Converging on their former L.A. home are an assortment of young adults dealing with plenty of their own relationship and career issues, but anxious to butt into their mother’s affairs.
Lisa (Regina King) is being pressured by her philandering husband Malcolm (Laz Alonso) to get Ma’Dere to sell the family dry cleaning business and the “too big” house, as well. Elder son Quentin (Idris Elba) is a footloose musician with unfriendly feelings for Ma’Dere’s boyfriend Joe (Delroy Lindo) and a couple of loan shark muscle men on his tail.
Kelli (Sharon Leal) is a free-wheeling single girl at odds with Lisa over the fact that Kelli took off for college rather than help out with the business. Michael “Baby” Whitfield wants a career in singing; but he hasn’t left the nest yet, and Ma’Dere doesn’t want the last child looking out for her to get hurt.
Mel (Lauren London) has brought home a young college student friend (Keith Robinson) her sibs tease and Claude is hiding more than the fact that he’s AWOL from the Marines. There’s a lovely girl waiting in a hotel room for him to break the news to his family that she’s pregnant, white and his wife.
At first, there are minor re-aquaintance tiffs. But, as the kids get down to brass tacks about their lives and admit they aren’t being true to themselves or each other, the gloves come off for some hilarious and poignant tussles.
Particularly amusing are the spitfire face-offs of Lisa and Kelli over a hunk (Mekhi Phifer) making a move on Kelli and over Lisa’s denials about Malcolm. As this reunion genre typically goes, everyone comes around to acknowledge that love transcends and forgives all.
Even if the ending is a foregone conclusion, the journey is a raucous roadmap most people will recognize as having found their steps on at some point in their own family story. These people from the mind of director/writer Preston A. Whitmore II deserve another visit.
Sony Pictures Entertainment release, rated PG-13 comic sexual content and some violence.
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