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This Christmas
User Score
6.1 out of 10

Generally favorable reviews- based on 14 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 8 out of 14
  2. Mixed: 1 out of 14
  3. Negative: 5 out of 14

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  1. JayH.
    Nov 9, 2008
    5
    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.
    • 0 of 0 users said yes
  2. DD.
    Dec 2, 2007
    8
    Excellent, the kids can even watch this one.
    • 0 of 0 users said yes
  3. DanielG.
    Nov 23, 2007
    10
    "This Christmas" was a humorous, sweet and heartfelt glance at the interactions of a family during Christmastime, and the lives of the individual members.
    • 0 of 0 users said yes
  4. JoshuaD.
    Nov 27, 2007
    10
    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.
    • 0 of 0 users said yes
  5. JoshC.
    Nov 27, 2007
    1
    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.… Expand
    • 0 of 0 users said yes
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Critic Reviews

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Metascore
63 out of 100

Generally favorable reviews - based on 24 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 17 out of 24
  2. Mixed: 7 out of 24
  3. Negative: 0 out of 24
  1. The Hollywood Reporter
    Reviewed by: Kirk Honeycutt
    60
    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.
  2. Variety
    Reviewed by: Lael Loewenstein
    70
    A rare holiday treat, a package that's both thoughtfully selected and sure to please its intended recipients.
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  3. Village Voice
    Reviewed by: Aaron Hillis
    40
    The cast has spirit, but the dialogue and situations are phonier than the Yule log on TV.
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