Yule Got To Be Kidding
Somebody's going on the naughty list for this one. (Film Review)
by Michael Sean McGowan
The Upside: Makes you want to shout, "Come back Polar Express, all is forgiven!"
The Downside: It could be re-titled Himmler's Guide to the Holidays.
A movie like Christmas with the Kranks almost makes you wish that George Orwell was alive to review it. Behind its bright, cheery, family-friendly front, this has got to be one of the most deceptively fascist movies I've seen in a very long while. It is a movie about Christmas that evokes typical Christmas themes but removes all of that True-Meaning-of-Christmas nonsense such as tolerance, love, and peace toward your fellow human being. Picture what you would get if you tried to put on a Holiday version of 1984 starring the cast of Up With People and you might get the idea of what I'm talking about.
Luther and Nora Krank, fed up with the endless aggravations, inconveniences, and bouts with near-bankruptcy of Christmas, decide to take a year off. After all, their daughter Blair has flown the nest, working with the Peace Corp in Peru. Luther figures their annual Christmas expenditure is about $6,000 which leads one to wonder, in a three person home what were they giving each other, solid-gold candy canes? Anyway, Luther decides that it will be cheaper, calmer, and more romantic to whisk his wife away on a luxury Caribbean cruise.
What they don't count on is the neighbors- and, frankly, neither did I. Christmas with the Kranks bears no resemblance to the real world whatsoever. It is set in an alternate universe that is driven by conformity to the point of madness and where people have no degree of self-respect. The Kranks' co-workers and neighbors, Xmas boosters if I've ever seen one, react with revulsion at the idea of this one family deciding not to buy a tree from the Boy Scouts, not hold an annual Christmas eve party, not put up any lights or the seven-foot Frosty the Snowman statue in the basement. I know some people are more Holiday tuned than others, but it is a stretch of imagination of light-year lengths to picture so many people reacting so passionately over something that really doesn't affect them. If I were to go into work tomorrow and announce the exact same thing in the break room, I'd be met with, "Oh. Did anyone see the game last night?"
But no- in this place Christmas is sacrosanct thanks to the local neighborhood baton-wielder Vic Frohmeyer (Dan Aykroyd) whose personal Holiday motto must be "Be of good cheer and nobody gets hurt." He arranges for a lightening-strike of guerrilla Christmas carolers to sing (loudly) on the Krank's front doorstep and for loud protest mobs of kids shouting, "Free Frosty! Free Frosty!" that makes your average goings on with the WTO look like tea time. All of this is to punish the "selfish" Kranks for their decision, leading me to believe that there has never been anyone with a name like Goldman or Glasser living on this block.
Actually, all of this wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing. Christmas with the Kranks does evoke some laughs, especially in depicting the utter lunacy of Yuletide blackshirts like Frohmeyer. Where it completely goes off the bend is that it does what it does for the wrong purpose. Christmas could have been an entertaining satire on how modern society has turned Christmas into a carnival midway if it worked under the idea that the Kranks were the only sane people in an insane world. Why is it so wrong that they break from tradition and take time off for themselves? Every time I heard one of the Krank's morality-deficient neighbors calling their act "stupid" or "selfish" I wanted to reach through the screen with a garrote. But Christmas with the Kranks isn't a cautionary tale against this kind of behavior- it is a poster child for it. When Blair calls up on Christmas Eve to announce she's coming home (wow- that Peace Corp sure has a liberal leave policy) the Kranks supposedly learn the error of their ways and fall in lockstep with everyone else on the street. The moral here isn't about understanding- it is that the nail that dares to stand above others is going to get the hammer.
But why should we be surprised? The novel Skipping Christmas by John Grisham (!) was a minor piece of work and more tolerable because it had a more Kafka-esque view: the Kranks were simply not strong enough to hold back the rising tide of manufactured Christmas sentiment. But this adaptation was penned by hack auteur Chris Colombus (Mrs. Doubtfire, Stepmom) who likes to sell emotion in his stories like they were street corner Rolexes- so believe you me, the Kranks are going to pay for their sin of not putting up the lights this year. The movie has plenty of other Colombus finger prints on it. Luther Krank is in an ongoing feud with his next-door neighbor, Walt Scheel (M. Emmet Walsh). Never one to miss an opportunity to yank on the heartstrings, Colombus has his soulful wife, Bev, dying of terminal cancer- which makes it even more curious how a man could be obsessed with whether or not his neighbor is putting up a Christmas tree when behind him the light of his life is fading fast. And when the big Turnaround happens at the end, the movie descends into pointless slapstick, which basically consists of a variety of characters running or falling into things while flailing their arms and screaming.
Tim Allen handles all this like he usually does- by acting inert. He never makes it really seem that Luther Krank would love to get out from under the yoke of Christmas and try something new. He can be a funny guy- I loved Galaxy Quest after all, but despite his TV persona he is too comfortable, too vanilla in the trappings of this kind of mediocrity. Jamie Lee Curtis is probably the best sport of the film, although she isn't given much to do except stand and exhibit expressions of either shock or outrage.
Walking out of Christmas with the Kranks I had a really creepy feeling, like the message of the film is similar to the message of those who argue that school prayer isn't a dividing idea- everything will be fine as long as you conform to the pack and don't make waves. Not only that, the vision of Christmas it sells is a Dollar Store one- presents and egg nog and mistletoe but nary a Brother's Keeper in sight. It even recoils from the religious purposes behind the Holidays like a vampire from a crucifix. It is a stretch that a Christmas comedy gets me thinking about science fiction, but Christmas with the Kranks had me thinking of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World- you could almost imagine the words "Community, Identity, Stability" emblazoned on the entryway to this plastic suburban utopia that the Kranks live in. And in Chris Colombus' view, Christmas is nothing more than soma- a drug to make you feel good and think about nothing else. It's the fact that he's asking the audience to take it too and not complain that I find completely reprehensible. D
Note: In kind of an amusing twist, the first piece of hate mail I received over this review came from my mom who wrote: "I saw it to be a good, enjoyable, funny, family show that proves you do not have to use vulgar language to get a point across. There should be more movies that the world can laugh at & with instead of all the murder, etc that is shown all year round." I replied asking her to point out the parts of the review where I said that Christmas with the Kranks would have been better with foul language, violence, etc... It isn't surprising that the movie has been lauded by many family choice groups. Don't get me wrong- I think these groups provided a valuable service steering parents towards fare that is acceptable for kids. What I don't like about how they operate is that they lavish praise based on inoffensiveness, not quality. Making a family movie doesn't mean you play to the lowest common denominator- the good folks at Pixar who have put out wonderful masterworks like Toy Story and Finding Nemo time and again have proved this. So, mom, I'll be able to stop writing reviews like this as soon as someone gets with that program.
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