By Fred Topel | Image property of Yari Film Group.
The Perfect Holiday
The Perfect Holiday may be the perfectly tame, generic, family friendly Christmas movie, but you've got to forgive it. It's not trying to be anything bigger, and it does its job well.
Review: The Perfect Holiday
Single mom Nancy (Gabrielle Union) wishes for a man to just give her a compliment, so her daughter asks mall Santa Benjamin (Morris Chestnut) to bring mommy that man. Benjamin takes it upon himself to start a whirlwind romance, while Queen Latifah and Terrence Howard pop up as the spirit of Christmas and the total sourpuss respectively.
It's cute. Latifah appears as a street vendor, a homeless person, a garbagewoman or whatever the scene requires. Howard relishes the evil of poo pooing on all her Christmas joy. That's kind of irrelevant though. It only happens a few times.
Union is doing Eva again, the same old frazzled, frantic power woman. But hey, this time it's all in the spirit of giving. They're all such nice people. Benjamin even feels bad about using her daughter's information to manipulate her. As romantic comedies go, that's a pretty harmless manipulation. You've Got Mail anyone?
There's just no cynicism in this whole story. As if a woman knows how to take a compliment. But this movie allows you to suspend disbelief and buy into a woman who can say thank you.
She drops the phone in the tomato sauce while trying to placate all her demanding kids. There's a montage of trying on outfits in front of the mirror. The lovebirds nervously avoid each other only to bump into each other anyway. It's all just cute.
Chestnut is fantastic with kids, smooth and respectful. That's a great image to show prospective parents. You don't have to be a condescending authoritarian like the A-hole in August Rush.
Charlie Murphy and Katt Williams do what must be improv routines as a bling-y rapper and his producer respectively. It's standard caricatures but it's all in good fun. I hated August Rush but even I'm not cynical enough to bash a harmless Christmas movie.
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