One Christmas

One Christmas was an autobiographical short story written by Truman Capote. Buddy, in the story, is Capote. Capote's father was actually a scam artist who spent time in prison. This story along with "A Christmas Memory" and "The Thanksgiving Visitor" make a wonderful trilogy. This movie doesn't do justice to Capote's beautiful, bittersweet prose, but might be worth seeing if you are a big fan of Capote (like I am) or of Katherine Hepburn, as this was one of her last appearances. Also, the wonderful Julie Harris plays Sook, who is the heart and soul of the movie (and the stories mentioned above.) However, if you are looking for a "happy, happy, joy, joy" Christmas movie - you should probably skip this one.

Truman Capote's story rises above some mediocre acting. I love his writing so I watched this. I didn't enjoy it as much as his Thanksgiving story, but it had its moments.

I felt Winkler was badly cast. He seems like a New Yorker among Southerners, not sure if this was on purpose. Katherine Hepburn is fine despite her failing health.

The boy was not a brat, as some reviewers have said. He is a troubled boy who Misses his mother and wants to know where she is. Sadly, his father does not tell him the truth, and this causes him to wish to be back with his aunt.

Julie Harris is wonderful as his aunt.

All in all, it's worth watching if you can overlook some of the performances.

The only reason I give this 6 stars is because of Katharine Hepburn. This just happened to be her final film role and I still can't figure out why she'd choose this as an end to her glorious career. She is the only reason I saw this movie and after viewing it, I can't say there was anything I enjoyed about this film other than her presence, even though her scenes took up less than 10 minutes of screen time. She is visibly frail in this movie, with her head shaking so severely, I though it was going to fall off any second. There were some good performances by Swoosie Kurtz and Henry Winkler but everything else about this movie "stinks". I just didn't connect with any of the characters due to their underdevelopment and the movie doesn't feel like it takes place in the 1930's, but then again I suppose the budget of this TV movie wouldn't allow that. Like I said before, I'd only recommend this to Hepburn fans, but anyone else shouldn't bother.

I mostly hate x-mas season on TV, 'cause there are thousands of ridiculous movies about it. However, this is an exception: it's intelligently made, with good performances (Katharine Hepburn, want more?) and, although it handles feelings and sensibility (just like a Christmas story), it gets away from common places and cliches. Don't miss it next x-mas!

This is such a cute film! It's a great Christmas movie and really cheer you up! I was surprised at Winkler's performance actually! I also was surprised that Hepburn only had 3 or 4 scenes, what she did have was adorable! She was practically just playing herself! Great, cute, family film!