Christmas, Again

I get the documentary-style indie concept. Focus a camera on scenarios that are so real that they border on reality t.v., but with actors playing roles. But if nothing is happening, the sociological slide show gets old quickly.

I love the idea of a day in the life of a Christmas tree salesman facing some kind of personal conflict. But there just wasn't enough happening here, nor much background information on the characters.

Indies seem fond of nicely framed shots of depressed people staring at a view or pondering something. They also seem fond of portraying life as depressing and pointless. It's almost as if that's an official point of view of the indie filmmaker community. Or maybe it's because they are of a certain generation and genuinely feel that way.

Having said that, depression does often go hand in hand with personal conflicts in a film, so I'll allow it.

The two main actors did a nice job of portraying real people with understated sadness and anomie. Unfortunately, like other reviewers have noted, the makers failed to develop potential plot lines to their potential. I kept checking the clock on netflix to see how much more time was left. That's not a good sign.

There is only one song, and that's at the end. So they didn't try to manipulate us with music. I suppose that is partly responsible for the documentary vibe.

Nice try. It has redeeming qualities,and something mildly interesting to say about the frailty of the human condition. But I was bored.

What a lovely, heartfelt film. The reason it works so well is because, as always, not forcing any emotion is the way to go. It's devoid of any silly contrivances and everything because of that feels and sounds realistic. The lead actor is pretty great. I reckon this must have been a difficult role to cast because it's so reliant on silence, and the actor is able to infuse the film with charm and emotion without ever feeling like he is trying. It's probably one of the best Christmas films I have ever seen, and definitely deserves to be seen by a much larger audience. Definitely recommended for anyone who wants something real and very relevant.

This deserves to get much more attention than it has gotten. Well worth the watch (and I can't say that of many modern movies)

The storytelling and direction seemed a bit clumsy, and somewhat amateurish. However, the main character was very believable, and I felt like I was seeing a real person, not an actor. But we never find out much at all about his background, or why or how he lost his former relationship. And the story never really develops much until late in the movie. We also never learn anything about Lydia's background, either, other than that she lives with some guy she isn't well-suited for.

While there is value in creating cinema that captures the everyday human experience, Christmas, Again overshoots that mark by being so real that it's boring. I'm not saying that every film needs to fill their spare moments with car chases, drug use, and automatic weapons, but at the very least, films should tell stories about interesting characters. It's too bad, considering the idea of a disaffected Christmas tree salesman named Noel (Kentucker Audley) who slowly recovers his holiday spirit could make a great story. I suppose what makes this film aggravating to watch is the fact that there were so many opportunities to expand the narrative beyond the many extensive close-ups of Noel looking angsty or wistful. For example, the unconscious mystery woman (Hannah Gross) whom Noel rescues from freezing to death on a park bench would have been a good avenue to explore. Instead, the film shows us a series of fractured scenes that hint at the vague possibility of a love story between them. It's possible that the film is ambiguous in order to encourage the audience to form their own conclusions, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but that sort of thing requires effort from an audience—and we don't like spending effort figuring out characters that we don't really care about. –Alex Springer