Brief Story Line
Claire Clauster (Michelle Pfeiffer - Ant-man and the Wasp: Quantumania, Mother! etc) had been planning for the perfect Christmas holiday gathering with her family that consisted of her husband Nick (Denis Leary - Ice Age: Collision Course, The Moodys TV series etc), the children i.e. Channing the oldest (Felicity Jones - The Midnight Sky, True Story etc), middle child Taylor (Chloë Grace Moretz - Nimona, Tom & Jerry 2021 version etc) and the youngest Sammy (Dominc Sessa - Now You See Me Now You Don't etc) together with Channing's husband Doug (Jason Schwartzman - Bored to Death TV series, The Darjeeling Limited etc) & their young twins.
However, Claire felt that her family had been taking her for granted especially when the children did not nominate her for Best Mother contest for TV program hosted by Zazzy Tims (Eva Longoria - The Pickup, Desperate Housewives TV series etc). Her frustration reached its peak when during the chaotic preparation to go to the Christmas dance show, the family somehow missed out on Claire. Feeling down, she decided to leave the house all by herself on Christmas Eve and refused to pick up the call bringing chaos to the family's Christmas plans.
So what would happen to Claire and family? You could find out in this movie.
End of Brief Story Line
To be honest, when I read the brief synopsis on Prime Video, I thought this would be a full comedy with a premise that sounded similar to Home Alone. But through out the first one third of the film, the focus was more on the family dynamics which surprisingly did not feel interesting. The characters seemed flat and the chemistry was very dull despite having experienced cast. The introduction of the Wang-Wasserman family neighbors did not help either cause the competition among the two families did not look convincing.
Anyway after almost reaching half way, the left alone part finally happened. Sadly it was not what I expected cause instead of giving more comedic moments, it turned into more of family drama. Which begs the question, why it was categorized as comedy in the first place? After finishing this movie, I did not feel satisfied at all. The humor did not feel funny, there was no heart warming moment for a Christmas-themed movie and the major issue of feeling left out or under appreciated was resolved in an overly simplistic manner that I found hard to relate to (including the concluding of huge conflict between two of the characters).
Frankly speaking, this is disappointing considering a lot of the cast were pretty well known who received plenty of praise in the past (three of them even received Academy Awards nomination). Aside from the names above, there were also appearances of Joan Chen (Ava, Heaven & Earth etc) as Jean Wang-wasserman, Danielle Brooks (A Minecraft Movie, The Color Purple 2023 version etc) as Morgan the courier, Devery Jacobs (Reservation Dogs TV series etc) as Taylor's girlfriend Donna, Havana Rose Liu (No Exit etc) as one of Jeanne's daughter Lizzie and few others. Unfortunately having large talented and experienced cast did not guarantee a quality film. The movie was directed and co-written by Michael Schowalter whose prior films The Big Sick and The Eyes of Tammy Faye were critically acclaimed. However, his pedigree certainly did not get better since this film was not well received by critics and audience, but it still made it to the top ten charts of Prime Video in various countries (excluding Indonesia).
Overall this was something that failed to live up to my expectation. It lacks strong comedy and the characters did not feel engaging enough. I think apart from Michelle Pfeiffer who was at least pretty convincing in her role, the rest did not seem like real family. Plus the chemistry was not there and the ending was not great. Though the topic itself was a good one and the purpose of showing how mothers are under-appreciated especially during such Christmas celebration was well intended, but perhaps making this movie as a family drama would have been better received. Although that is just my humble opinion. So if you are looking for a Christmas comedy movie, then I do not think you would find it here and better look somewhere else.
Mike's movie moments rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars
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