The Best Christmas Pageant Ever

I was parusing through IMDB hoping I would find a new Christmas movie to watch every year. I read the reviews and I was instantly curious about The Best Christmas Pageant Ever. So my wife and I went to our favorite theater to see if my hunch was correct.

The writers took the time to introduce each character so we could feel as if we were in the movie with the children.

As usual there was the obligatory mean children who made the others always on edge.

As the movie progressed we not only felt sad for the bullied kids but became intrigued as to why the mean kids were bullies.

Give the movie a chance. We did. Now it will be on our Christmas must see movie list every year. 👏👏

The film starts off rather slow and does drags in parts, specifically the bits where the mother is educating the children. I understand the reason why she is doing it but most of the viewers already know and understand the story and it kind of feels like those parts were aimed and younger kids which is fair enough because it is a Christmas movie after all.

The comedy also on the whole falls rather flat, for me the comedy wasn't very funny. Like I could see what they were trying to do but for me it didn't work.

This mixed with a few occasions of bad acting and some scenes felt a bit awkward.

With the negatives out of the way it's time for the positives, and gosh there is a lot. The whole message of the story was very powerful and emotional, the audience can really relate with what they are trying to display and despite the hermans being extremely menacing you can genuinely connect with them and really feel for their hardships in life. You can really see the Christmas magic in this movie and the strong religious themes express the magic. I would've liked to see more background information on the Herman's, I feel that would've added even more to their characters.

The reason it isn't rated higher is because I don't feel it comes anywhere close to some of the Christmas classics, a few adjustments to the film and it could've been a Christmas film to remember for a lifetime.

Beth: "Everything is falling apart." Grace: "I'm not sure they were ever together."

And so it goes with an annual Christmas pageant, whose machinations would rival a small military exercise. It's the film adaptation of the child's book, The Best Christmas Pageant Ever. And it is just as the title suggests, at least for me who thinks this is the best Christmas film in years.

Comedy and drama march together as Grace (Judy Greer) runs the annual pageant now that its usual director has been incapacitated. Grace is a good person exemplifying the best of Christian virtue, yet her values will be tested to the max with the arrival of the Herdman children, motherless ruffians notorious for being ornery and at times downright destructive.

Although Grace is inclined to accept the clan for major roles, in the absence of other volunteers, most of the town, even her children, are exclusionary of the infamous family. Thus begins the dominant motif of the subtle faith-based dramedy, the acceptance of those not like us.

As Grace uses her people and drama skills to pull off the pageant, so, too, do others see the value of listening to critics of the status quo as the Herdman's are. More destructive than anything else is their challenges to conventional wisdom, for instance, the account of the Three Wisemen delivering gifts wholly unsuited to an impoverished family. The answer of delivering a ham is perfect and indicative of the riches the Herdman's give to the clueless town in the form of vigorous opposition to the outdated norms of the Bible.

I hope I have persuaded you to try director Dallas Jenkins' The Best Christmas Pageant Ever. My tastes run from It's a Wonderful Life to Bad Santa and not faith-based films in general. Yet, I have been impressed by the quality of such Angel Productions as Sound of Freedom, Cabrini, and Bonhoeffer and now the Kingdom Story Company's Best Christmas. I'm open to new experiences.

Happy Holidays.

Over the decades, our society has gone from MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET (on my IMDb list of best films) to many dozens of meet-cute pseudo romcoms that pretend to be X-mas films, and are forgotten as soon as the closing credits roll. Most if not all replete with suspicious Canadian accents. Finally, we have a film which is not original but on-point, interesting, well-written, well-acted, and impactful. They should all be like this. They won't. But they should. ((Designated "IMDb Top Reviewer." Please check out my list "167+ Nearly-Perfect Movies (with the occasional Anime or TV miniseries) you can/should see again and again (1932 to the present))

A very enjoyable movie that I plan to add to my annual Christmas movie must-see list.

It's great to have a Christmas movie that is truly about Christmas, and provides moments to both laugh and cry. I had not been familiar with the story, and somewhat surprised to find that it had been around long enough to have already been turned into a TV movies 30+ years ago.

I hope this makes it onto many people's list of favorite Christmas movies. It might be the only one other than Charlie Brown's Christmas that intertwines the true meaning of Christmas with an enjoyable, amusing storyline.

Thank you, Dallas Jenkins.