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This Christmas

Generally favorable reviews
Based on 24 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 14 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Drama
Written by: Preston A. Whitmore, II
Directed by: Preston A. Whitmore, II
Release Date:
Theatrical: November 21, 2007
DVD: November 11, 2008
Running Time: 117 minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Summary
RATING: PG-13 for comic sexual content and some violence
Starring Delroy Lindo, Idris Elba, Loretta Devine, Chris Brown, Keith Robinson, Laz Alonso, Mekhi Phifer, and Regina King
This year, Christmas with the Whitfields promises to be one they will never forget. All the siblings have come home for the first time in years and they've brought plenty of baggage with them. As the Christmas tree is trimmed and the lights are hung, secrets are revealed and family bonds are tested. As their lives converge, they join together and help each other discover the true meaning of family. (Sony)
Also On Metacritic
FILM: Crossover
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database View The Trailer Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow
This Christmas is the rare movie about a cozy household at holiday time that's as funny and dramatic and poignant as any seasonal family get-together should be.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle G. Allen Johnson
It's warm, witty and alive, with a fantastic cast and a belief in its characters that transcends its formulaic tendencies.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey
At the multiplex where so many holiday movies feel regifted, This Christmas is a gift.
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
What's surprising is how well Whitmore, the director, manages to direct traffic. He's got one crisis cooling, another problem exploding, a third dilemma gathering steam and people exchanging significant looks about secrets still not introduced. It's sort of a screwball-comedy effect, but with a heart.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum
Everyone in this madly good-looking clan has got soapy problems as befits an aspirational, say-amen holiday movie.
Read Full Review >Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman
It's different from the usual fare in one obvious way -- most of the cast are African Americans -- and, more importantly, in its willingness to leave some problems unsolved and volatile or unhappy people unchanged.
Read Full Review >Film Threat Stina Chyn
Impressively stays away from the cheese and the sap that ordinarily accompany holiday pictures.
Read Full Review >Variety Lael Loewenstein
A rare holiday treat, a package that's both thoughtfully selected and sure to please its intended recipients.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Stephen Hunter
The result is a big, gushy, emotional, secret-driven, family-obsessive casserole, perhaps facile in some of its resolutions, but so full of good heart and love -- the real kind, which is scratchy, awkward, difficult to express and doesn't conquer all but just some -- that the movie is difficult to resist.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Nathan Rabin
"Christmas" won't wow anyone with its audacity or originality, but it's bound to make plenty of people happy with its slick, crowd-pleasing familiarity.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Wesley Morris
One of those overstaffed, overstuffed "when do we eat?" holiday dramedies. Call it a double-extra-strength episode of "Soul Food."
Read Full Review >USA Today Claudia Puig
Enjoyable enough. Though like some holiday fare, it doesn't quite stay with you.
Read Full Review >New York Post Lou Lumenick
So full of solid performances and appealing characters that I wished writer/director/producer Preston Whitmore (“The Walking Dead") had considered the dictum “less is more."
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman
No matter how silly the situation, each member of the uniformly strong cast creates a nice balance between sentimental and sweet - which is just how every holiday gathering should feel.
Read Full Review >The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt
Writer-director Preston A. Whitmore II throws enough soap opera for an entire TV season into a story that nearly -- but not quite -- sinks from the weight of all these implausible events. Animated acting and the sheer chaos of this squabbling family give the film a comic buoyancy.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Laura Kern
Boisterous and bittersweet, the film is not dull, but it does feel hopelessly overstuffed, with scant time to devote to any one story line.
Read Full Review >Seattle Post-Intelligencer Andy Spletzer
Not a bad movie, per se. It's just harmless and bland and dull and predictable, and sometimes that's worse than a bad movie.
Read Full Review >The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Jason Anderson
Occasionally engaging but very chaotic movie.
Read Full Review >Empire Emily Phillips
Like mum's home-made comfort food, it's warming but not really that good for you.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Josh Rosenblatt
It’s redemption through sentimentality, salvation through schmaltz.
Read Full Review >Village Voice Aaron Hillis
The cast has spirit, but the dialogue and situations are phonier than the Yule log on TV.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 6.0 (out of 10) based on 14 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Jay H. gave it a5:
Fair Christmas story, uneasily mixes heavy drama with comedy. Rather predictable and tends to use cliches in the story. The acting is fine, no one is great though.
D D. gave it an8:
Excellent, the kids can even watch this one.
Josh C. gave it a1:
A holiday melodrama suffering from severe bloat, This Christmas concerns the reunion of the Whitfield family, a clan dealing with so many dilemmas that it's a wonder they ever get to sit down for Christmas dinner. They do, of course, and Preston A. Whitmore II's film is best when it focuses on the spirituality of saying pre-meal grace and the ensuing, chatter-filled feasts, instances that exude a genuineness that's otherwise sorely lacking from this overstuffed grab bag of conflicts and romantic affairs. A soldier (Columbus Short) gone AWOL, a jazz saxophonist (Idris Elba) on the run from bookies, a wife (Regina King) dealing with a cheating husband (Laz Alonso), a young man (Chris Brown) yearning to fulfill his dream of being a singer, and a matriarch (Loretta Devine) struggling to keep her family and long-term boyfriend (Delroy Lindo) happy are just a few of the plotlines jammed into this tale's two-hour runtime. Whitmore spends virtually every available second entangling his pleasant but rather clichéd characters in—and then extricating them from—quandaries. And the film would have been better served with fewer narrative threads and far more inventiveness. This is most readily apparent in the case of Lisa (King) and Malcolme (Alonso), whose marital problems are both broadly conceived and then resolved via some easy Angela Bassett/Waiting to Exhale retribution. Yet it generally applies to the amiable proceedings as a whole, since the writer-director is ultimately more interested in dishing out unadventurous, heartwarming mush than anything that might qualify as challenging, unexpected, or even boisterous. Whitmore guides his conventional material with a competent hand, and there's nothing disagreeable about his cast's uniformly sturdy turns, but with so few surprises, This Christmas eventually winds up feeling like a lot of past ones.
Joshua D. gave it a10:
An all around outstanding phenomenal film. I enjoyed every second of the drama, the comedy, and the relation of the modern world this film possesses.
Daniel G. gave it a10:
"This Christmas" was a humorous, sweet and heartfelt glance at the interactions of a family during Christmastime, and the lives of the individual members.
