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The story features a Puerto Rican family who live in Chicago, in the United States, and who are gathering for Christmas. Alfred Molina is excellent as the father, Edy, married to Anna (Elizabeth Pena). They are particularly excited to see their son Jesse (Freddie Rodriguez) returning from a lengthy stint in the army, based in Iraq. He has been injured and is quite traumatised by some of what he’s seen, and it’s hard for them to know how to deal with him. There’s a huge ‘welcome home’ banner which we see right at the start of the film, then the action changes to Jesse at the airport, then met by some friends.
Jesse’s brother Mauricio (John Leguizamo) is a suited businessman, married to the highflying Sarah (Debra Messing). She’s the only non-Puerto Rican in the family, and is still adjusting to the culture. She’s had some clashes with Anna, but she’s trying hard: she’s even learned some Spanish. But she and John have no desire to start a family any time soon, and she finds the pressure from Edy and Anna very stressful.
Then there’s their sister Roxanna (Vanessa Ferlito). She works in Hollywood, but is struggling to find any work, although her family are convinced she’s a huge star, or about to become one.
As far as I could work out, all the other characters who eat with the family, or hang out with them, are friends - or possibly cousins. It was hard to tell, and perhaps it doesn’t matter. The picture is of a huge, extended family who sit down to a huge meal… and then Anna announces something, almost casually, that shatters any hint of Christmas spirit or community.
It’s possible that, if we were familiar with Puerto Rican culture, we would have found the film amusing in places, although most of the themes are sad - they include illness and relationship breakups as well as the horrors of war. There’s also a theme of revenge which didn’t entirely make sense and didn’t seem to be related to the rest of the film. There are some scenes of different men in the family attempting in vain to cut down a large tree, but even that is more poignant than amusing, and when someone takes a chainsaw without knowing how to operate it, I looked away, worried that disaster would happen.
The acting is mostly good - I found the main family members believable, their tensions and simultaneous affection quite realistic. But the storyline was really quite depressing - some resolution is reached in some of the issues, but there’s no ‘happy ever after’. Christmas is the setting, and there’s a scene of carol singing in the streets, but it’s not really a Christmas film. I’m not sure what it is, or who it would appeal to. It’s not suitable for children despite the PG rating. There’s a fair amount of bad language, some violence, several sexual references, and some tense scenes too.
There were places when I found the accents too strong to understand. There were English subtitles for important parts that were in Spanish; I could have done with subtitles for some of the conversations which were in English too!
It’s not (in my opinion) humorous, despite what the blurb says on the back, and it’s not really heart-warming. I think I’d have liked it better if it had been billed as a tense family drama covering serious issues; that way, the lighter scenes would have provided some light relief, but we wouldn’t have been expecting any humour, so wouldn’t have been disappointed.
We did watch to the end, but think it’s unlikely we’ll choose to watch it again. I don’t really recommend it. Still, it’s highly reviewed on many sites, so don’t necessarily follow my opinion.
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