Switchmas
Netflix synopsis: It's Holiday Break, and Ira, a Jewish boy with Christmas dreams, trades plane tickets with a boy headed for Christmastown, WA.
*Gideon commentary is in red.
*Sam commentary is in black.
*Gideon commentary is in red.
*Sam commentary is in black.
The rundown: Ira Finklestein has a problem. He wants to celebrate Christmas with snow and caroling and colorful decorations, and his parents want to ship him off to Florida to spend the holiday with his grandparents. They decide to do this once Ira's dad, a really bad filmmaker, secures a somewhat big-name actress for his Christmas film. She has to shoot through Christmas, so Ira's dad say, "Screw giving my kid a happy holiday! Let's send him off to my parents' retirement home!" Ira is understandably pissed off about this.
First off, this film's premise is deeply uncomfortable. As you know Jewish-Christian relations have a long history of, uh, difficulty. Jewish guilt over outsider status is an odd foundation for a family Christmas film. Anyway, the film doesn't pull any punches. Mr. Finkelstein is a movie producer shipping off his nonathletic kid to his parents in their Floridan retirement community. And since they "never visit," said grandparents won't know if anything's amiss! Oy vey, my friends. I'm surprised we haven't had any dancing dreidel musical numbers. Ira finds another kid at the airport who looks vaguely like him. They swap sob stories, because said doppelganger also has a dysfunctional family living in "Christmastown." Ira has a bad CGI musical fantasy sequence (imagine a fever dream of a Rankin-Bass special) and goes for the throat. He's going to avoid Hanukkah with the most Christian flair possible!
Once in Christmastown, Ira finds that his new family isn't exactly what he dreamed of. His new aunt and uncle are clearly on the rocks because his new uncle has lost his job. His new cousins - a young child obsessed with Karate Don, a girl his age and a teenager girl who is perpetually angry - are just as dysfunctional as their parents. Teenage Cousin even brings up the family's money troubles over dinner, which is a frozen pizza by the way. Ira convinces Teenage Cousin to take him, Other Girl Cousin and Karate Don Cousin to the Christmas parade. Teenage Cousin abandons the kids at the parade, so Ira uses his father's credit card to tear through Christmastown. He buys a gingerbread house, a festive sweater and a menorah. Meanwhile in Florida...
Not-Ira is having a fabulous time being Jewish. His faux-grandparents feed him latkes, play tennis with him, and do all sorts of beach-y things. This is contrasted with his counterpart's trials. Poor Ira is bilked by Angry Cousin, chased by dogs, and bullied by anti-festive hatemongers ("Christmas is for wusses!"). Ira wants to call the whole thing off, but the Gentile Kid is having too much damn fun being doted upon by Jewish grandparents. He ignores Ira's frantic calls and continues to have a great vacation. He has so much fun that he breaks his arm, prompting Ira's parents to halt their shockingly inane Christmas film production. Oh no! How will Not-Ira squirm out of this predicament?
Ira arranges a Christmas musical about how Jews and Christians can get along. He reveals his identity to Other Girl Cousin, who is super excited about all the deception. She helps him create the set and write the music and they become besties. A bully kid ruins the set the day of the show, but fortunately Ira shows him the true meaning of Christmas and he agrees to help him pull off the musical. But can they make it work? And what about Not-Ira? Will he be thrown out on his fake-Jewish bootay?
I don't really recall what happens to Not-Ira. The grandparents still love him. I think he's reconciled with his mother and cousins. Anyway, this is the Ira Show, and we're about to experience the premiere. Ira's irate parents arrive in
He said: I must admit, I had high (low) hopes for this little outing. It sounded tone-deaf, if not offensive. Maybe I've been exposed to too many well-meaning "Jews 4 Jesus" stories in the Evangelical world. Despite the rather thorny premise, I was surprised by its mild conclusion. Ira isn't self-loathing as much as he misses a healthy family dynamic. His love of Christmas is really a masked desire to have a Norman Rockwell holiday with his fractured family. His Nativity play reflects his Jewish identity while also extending a hand of hospitality to those outside his faith. It's a nice gesture. It's also a fairly bland and rote Christmas film. There are a few moments of low-budget horror. Ira's fantasy sequences are particularly jarring and awful. The jokes are either dumb TV fare or hoary cliches. The characters are likewise unpacked from that dusty old box in the attic. CHRISTMAS STOCK CHARACTERS; HANDLE WITH CARE. But for what it's worth, Ira's misadventures make for a better Christmas film than the bizarre sci-fi romance starring a stock diva as a humanoid Rudolph. It's also leagues better than some of the garbage we've reviewed thus far.
Feminism: Not-Ira's mother is a single parent weighed down by the pressures of life. Dumb kid doesn't know what it's like.
Shoehorned Christmas cheer: Extreme, even for a film set in "Christmastown."
Sequel potential: Low
Manly sighs: Moderate
Jewish Guilt: Heavy at first, but a Jewish Santa Claus educates Ira on the prominent role of Jewish entertainers in American Christmas pop culture. How's that for defeating antisemitism?
Candy canes: 2
She said: I really liked this movie, mostly because it came directly after Happy Christmas which was so unhappy that I couldn't even rate it properly. The kids in this movie weren't annoying like I thought they would be. Because they came from dysfunctional families, I felt a lot of pity for them. I found Ira incredibly likeable and didn't even mind the kid who played Not-Ira. I thought he had pretty great comedic timing, actually.
What is happening to me? How could I genuinely enjoy a film this sappy with a large cast of children? Maybe the Christmas spirit really is getting to me.
What is happening to me? How could I genuinely enjoy a film this sappy with a large cast of children? Maybe the Christmas spirit really is getting to me.
Sappiness: Lots, but I didn't mind at all.
Gore level: We get to see a gnarly scar that resulted from a dog attack.
Cute animals: A super cute doggie!
Loud kids that are supposed to be cute but are really annoying: There are a lot of kids but I didn't find any of them annoying. That's either a testament to the film or an indication that I'm going soft.
Poorly dubbed singing: It was pretty rampant at the end.
Candy canes: 5
Final Score: 3.5 candy canes
No comments:
Post a Comment