Nothing Like the Holidays (review)

While I didn't like the movie as much as Roger Ebert did, I liked the cast and the setting well enough. The script teetered on the cusp of stereotypes without completely falling in.

Molina is British (and, boy, did he sound British in one or two places in this movie!), but his father was from Spain and his mother was from Italy.

I'm more impressed by Freddy Rodriguez in everything I see him in.

Molina is a Spanish surname.

And the word "Hispanic" is originally derived from the Latin word for "Spain"--the country of Molina's paternal ancestors. (And anyway, many Hispanics consider the term to be controversial for that very reason.)

However, Alfred Molina had said in interviews--including one he did with--ironically--Hispanic Magazine that he does not consider himself to be Hispanic. He has played Hispanic characters in many a movie prior to Nothing Like the Holidays (the most obvious being his roles in Raiders of the Lost Ark and Maverick) but that doesn't necessarily mean anything. After all, Mexican-born actor Anthony Quinn used to play so many Italian characters in the movies that I once thought he was Italian.

Anyway, if Molina chooses to not see himself as Hispanic, there's no point in trying to drag him kicking and screaming into the Hispanic community. There are more important issues for Hispanics to address.

Well, I finally saw the movie on DVD--per MaryAnn's instructions--and it wasn't as bad as I feared.

SPOILERS

Some moments were off. I couldn't help but wonder why a Puerto Rican would have the first bars of a Mexican folk song as a tune on his car horn and why Alfredo Molina's character used the same Spanish term of endearment for his wife that I used to use for my Mexican grandmother.

And though this would be the first Latino Christmas movie ever, it was still depressing to note how familiar some of the plot elements are: the murdered sibling, the non-Latin wife, the spouse who may or may not be unfaithful, the old girlfriend who may or may not have been pregnant with a certain family member's illegitimate child...

And yet I liked it a bit more than I expected to after seeing this movie's rather silly trailer.

Though seeing former I Married Dora star Elizabeth Pena as a would-be grandparent was almost as shocking as seeing her former co-star Juliette Lewis appear on an episode of My Name Is Earl.

The cast is appealing, honest, and authentic (well, apart from the fact that Molina is not Hispanic), but the story less so, relying on some unenunciated healing power of family to magically hand everyone the “right” major life decisions at the last moment... decisions that appear to spring from nothing we’ve seen before, except that, apparently, family makes you wise.

SPOILER

...And concern for a dying family member tends to put your own personal issues into perspective.

Okay, it doesn't work that way in real life all the time but sometimes it does.