IMDB 5.7/10
My Rating: 8/10
Sincerity Factor: 9/10
Treacle Factor: 3/10
On Christmas Eve in a small town, five isolated strangers face despair, but as their individual lives cross paths, each is affected by the others.
So, after the utter misery that was The Christmas Box, here is something cheerier - A Christmas movie about loneliness, depression and suicide! Straight-up warning going in - This is one of the darkest, bleakest holiday movies I've ever encountered, and yet if you stick with it, there probably won't be a dry eye in the house. This is an extra-impressive accomplishment considering that the entire movie is rendered without sparkles, magical angels, Christmas wishes, miracles, or anything remotely reindeer-ey. There isn't even any snow!
It's even more startling when you realize that this is taken from a story by Jerry Jenkins, co-author of the utterly retarded Left Behind series. I very nearly turned it off when I saw that, because I could not imagine that anything written by a guy who believes the "good people" will be Raptured into space could possibly be enjoyable for me, and I was braced for another massive attack of bad religion. When it was over, I found to my slightly stunned surprise that A) it was one of the best Christian movies I have ever seen, and B) ironically, this fundamentalist writer has also managed to write perhaps the best humanist Christmas film ever. High praise, but I have to give him credit - Pick a holiday movie, ANY holiday movie, and you're almost certain to get something where all the unhappiness in the story is set right by some outside magical force, be it angels, God, or Santa. Midnight Clear stands just about alone in presenting a movie where humans... Just humans... have magnificent impacts on each other's lives simply by doing the small decencies that make society work.
The basic story is this: Five people face a Christmas Eve night at the end of their tethers. Kirk is trapped in a dead-end business, a Quick-Stop he purchased in hopes it would be a valuable commercial location. Young mother Mary struggles with life as a single mom after her husband is left brain-damaged by a car accident. Mitch is a youth pastor tasked with inspiring his church teens but riven with self-doubt as to his ability to make faith "cool". Retiree Eva lives alone and methodically plans suicide. And the main character, Lefty (a stellar performance by Stephen Baldwin), is a hopeless homeless alcoholic, the sort of character we've all met at one time or another, a guy who simply cannot do anything right. The movie follows each of these stories as they intersect and impact on each other in unexpected ways.
And, I think, empathy is one of the movie's most-required traits to appreciate it. In a nutshell, if you haven't stared into this abyss, you'll probably just find it depressing - Comfortable middle-class types will balk and want to change channels to the Hallmark film, or anything that seems cheerier. Unless you've actually been in a situation where an unexpected stranger handing you a tiny bit of help literally meant all the world to you, you may have trouble appreciating this movie. For those who can relate, though, it's a terrific film, and as the cover blurb says, "One's heart soars from watching it".
While Lefty's homeless Christmas Eve is the main focus, the other characters are also excellent. K Callan's Eva, especially, is riveting... This is an elderly lady who can glue you to the screen just watching her facial expressions change from one moment to the next. You know her path from the opening scenes, where she hobbles onto a decrepit porch, fills a cat food bowl, pauses, and then pours the remaining food from the bag into a pile on the porch. The grace, dignity, and stubbornness with which she advances her suicide plan is tragic and chilling. Kirk and Mary provide some banter when Mary's car breaks down at the Quick Stop, but the fifth character, Mitch, might be my favorite even though he has possibly the least lines and focus. Mitch is another soul adrift - Unlike the others, he's comfortable and supported by family and community, but is sunk into personal depression, unable to inspire or understand how to live a "good" life. Maybe he's most of us - Wanting to do a good deed, but not knowing what to do and too inhibited to try. His Christmas Eve job is unenviable... To herd a group of caroling teens from home to home, visiting shut-ins and passing out care packages from the church:
Mitch is living in the shadow of his injured friend, that guy who really was inspirational to the youth and always did everything right. He also provides the film's small moments of comic relief as we hop from the tragedies of Lefty and Eva to the atrociously singing teens going door to door. By the end, these five people have encountered each other in the ways they need, both knowingly and unknowingly, and the story clicks together like a puzzle as dozen disparate threads snap into place. It's inspiring and still believable - There are no perfect happy endings here and no one is miraculously delivered from their problems, but they get a tiny bit of help and sometimes that's enough.
Is it perfect? Nope... The few points of Treacle I gave it above are due to a couple moments of Too-Neat coincidences - Moments or lines that might have been better cut. Then again, what's a Christmas film without at least a tiny dollop of sentimentality? I think what impresses me the most is that it's a clearly religious film and I actually liked it - Usually movies with religious messages put me off terribly (I have no problem with religious faith per se, but I have a potent dislike for the dogmatic organized church). So if a movie can touch me, classic "angry atheist" that I am, it really must be doing something right. And as I said, I'm left a bit boggled to find that the movie also carries such a profound humanist message, given the fundamentalism of the writer.
In the end, it's a Christmas movie that will make you think, and that's high praise indeed.
Love this review!!!!
ReplyDeleteThanks! I have a hard time finding holiday films that don't make me gag, so this was a wonderful discovery - My wife and I liked it so much we got the DVD and it's going to be a Christmas regular from now on.I just wish more people had heard of it.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Trever. I like the way you think and write, when you have the full picture before you (as with Midnight Clear). I have no problem with your general assessment of Left Behind (many thought it was retarded) but was surprised that you concluded that it avers that "the 'good people' will be Raptured..." Clearly you are responding to something else you heard or read, because nothing could be further from the truth; in fact, the opposite is posited in Left Behind and is the whole point. You may find the truth of it just as retarded, but the fact is that I believe -- and made clear in Left Behind -- that many of those left behind are better people than those taken. Ephesians 2:8-9.
ReplyDeleteInteresting! I will readily admit that I committed the cardinal sin of judging the series without actually reading it, but I read enough reviews of it to warn me to steer widely clear because it seemed to be a series written purposefully to piss me off... Which is to say, a exclusionary vision of Christianity founded on the idea that if you're "in the club", you're saved, and if you're not, welcome to Mad Max land because you deserve it. That's my impression, at least, from the reviews and commentary I have seen.
ReplyDeleteIf it helps to understand my perspective, I am a product of the Bible Belt and am surrounded by people who think it's perfectly OK to slap "This car will be empty on Rapture" stickers on their cars... which I can't help but think is an astonishingly arrogant thing to proclaim to the world. 45 years of this sort of fundamentalism have made me *extremely* wary of anything that smacks of organized religion. I suppose you could say that I do my best to live a Christian life but don't believe in the church or literal interpretations of the bible. This was a big part of why I loved Midnight Clear so much, because it neatly encapsulated what I believe is the good that people can do, and the good that religion can do when it's channeled toward helping people in need instead of judging and condemning.
And on an unrelated note, you folks really aced the movie in the casting of Stephen Baldwin. That's the best part I've ever seen him play. I went out and bought two DVDs of this after we watched it on Netflix, one for us and one as a Christmas gift for a friend. The director's commentary was fascinating, too.
Most of the posts seem to have been made a bit long ago, but just came across them via an e-mail from Dallas Jenkins.
ReplyDeleteMost of the scenes were made in the Dallas/Fort Worth area.
The final scenes in the church were made at our church, White's Chapel United Methodist Church in Southlake. The "extra's" were church members and some were members of the choir.
Thanks for your comment! Yes, I heard in the director's commentary track that the church members were real, and that some of the scenes were actually filmed during the "set up" for some of the scenes, to capture the chaotic feel of the church getting ready for service. The commentary track was interesting all around - I love those, and this one had a lot of fascinating insights into making an indie film.
ReplyDelete