John Whitehead

Christmas Eve at Miller’s Point is a film that’s more concerned about nostalgic emotion than telling a story. It feels like you’re watching the beginning 20 minutes of Home Alone on repeat for two and a half hours straight. And the runtime is only 1 hour 45 minutes. It truly captures the hectic, hallmark quality of a Christmas movie but without any sense of plot line or purpose. We move aimlessly from one cliched holiday scene to the next in an attempt to create some sense of connection to the family. And while the loose back story around family politics and sibling bickering draw us into the drama for a while, we are ultimately left disappointed as none of the characters are written well enough to hold our attention, or make us care enough about their family problems. The weirdest part of this movie was probably the sudden introduction of Michael Cere half way through the film. Playing a local police officer, in a double act with Greg Turkington, the deadpan acting between these two policemen is both bizarre and a little creepy. Again, with the few fleeting scenes these two share we’re giving some snippets of their relationship but nothing that adds to the overall story. Like opening the windows of an advent calendar, we’re given small glimpses into various characters lives and yet we’re never given a chance to connect with them, as nobody’s story has a cohesive arch. If this is a movie about authentically depicting a stereotypical big family at Christmas then it succeeds completely. As the most accurate part of the film is that it truly captures the feeling of boredom you get when you’ve been at the party way too long.