A celluloid mirror is held up to many December family gatherings in the form of Nothing Like the Holidays, a lively, well cast dramedy that captures both the grey-cloud exasperation and silver lining of time spent cooped up with blood relatives who remain outside of driving distance for the rest of the year. Set amongst a sociable Puerto Rican-American family in Chicago’s Humboldt Park area, the film leans on a strong ensemble cast to easily trump its narrative familiarity and pat, sometimes awkward dramatic hurdles.
The story centers on far-flung members of the Rodriguez family who converge at their parents’ home to celebrate Christmas. There’s wounded Iraq War veteran Jesse (Freddy Rodriguez, above left), who arrives with rekindled feelings for an old flame (Melonie Diaz), now a single mother. Roxanna (Vanessa Ferlito, above right) is an actress who has been chasing Hollywood dreams for years, and is hopeful of good news on a recent audition. Eldest brother Mauricio (John Leguizamo, above center), meanwhile, struggles to bridge the cultural gap between his high-powered executive wife (Debra Messing) and the rest of his family, most particularly his mother Anna (Elizabeth Peña), who doesn’t hide her dismay that they haven’t yet delivered her a grandchild. Matters are thrown into disarray when Anna shocks her children by announcing that she’s divorcing their father Edy (Alfred Molina), whom she suspects of having an affair.
Director Alfredo de Villa (Adrift in Manhattan) has a writing background as well, which helps him locate the authenticity in this tale: what’s endearing about a sibling one moment can also become suddenly irritating. He achieves this primarily though a lot of jokey, barb-filled crosstalk, but there’s some smart visual detail too, like the photo of Puerto Rican Hall of Fame baseball player Roberto Clemente that hangs in the background on the wall of Edy’s modest bodega.
The script, by Alison Swan and Rick Najara, keeps most conflict at arms’ length, defined only enough to generate momentary drama that never really seeps out of any single, self-contained scene. Owing to this, the movie also has trouble balancing some of the more emotionally charged moments with its seemingly natural instinct to inject comedy, as in a sequence where Mauricio attempts to mitigate the conflict between his parents by inviting over the neighborhood priest, who’s only too happy to stuff his face with Chinese carry-out food. Still, the combined effect of all this voluble engagement is greater than the sum of all its parts, certainly enough to merit a shrug of good-natured acquiescence.
Housed in a regular plastic Amaray case in turn stored in a cardboard slipcover, Nothing Like the Holidays comes to DVD presented in 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen, with a Dolby digital 5.1 surround sound audio track and optional English SDH and Spanish subtitles. A warm, engaging feature-length audio commentary track with de Villa, producer Robert Teitel and actor Rodriguez alights on all sorts of production anecdotes, and a 12-minute making-of featurette, a whopping 15 minutes of bloopers and on-set flubs, and the film’s theatrical trailer are also included. To purchase the DVD via Amazon, click here. B- (Movie) B (Disc)