Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point boasts the participation of a Scorsese and a Spielberg, yet it’s director Tyler Thomas Taormina who makes this drama a winningly unique Yuletide movie. A snapshot of an annual family gathering that’s laced with an array of prickly emotions, it’s an evocatively ragamuffin and rowdy mood piece that recognizes the joy and sorrow, bitterness and regret, and hopefulness and forgiveness that comes from loved ones reuniting to reconnect, mend fences, and figure out the next steps in their ongoing, multigenerational saga.
Shot by Eephus director Carson Lund with dreamy, dazzling warmth—all twinkling lights, smeary slow-motion, and curious pans—Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point, which hits theaters Nov. 8, takes place on Santa’s big night in the New York home of Matty Balsano (John Trischetti Jr.), who acquired the house from his mother Antonia (Mary Reistetter), who still resides in it with him and his wife and kids.
This is the meeting spot for the entire Balsano clan, whose members range from elderly Isabelle (JoJo Cincinnati), who navigates the staircase with the assistance of a motorized chair, to a gaggle of pint-sized kids eager to see what goodies are nestled beneath the heavily decorated tree. It’s into this bustling enclave that Emily (Matilda Fleming) arrives alongside her brother Andrew (Justin Longo), her father Lenny (Ben Shenkman), and her mother Kathleen (Maria Dizzia), the last of whom she’s currently at odds with for unspoken reasons. Upon entering, they’re greeted with a wave of cheers, hugs, and kisses, as if enveloped in a huge embrace—or swallowed by a gigantic beast.
Numerous faces populate Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point, and Taormina (working from a script co-written with Eric Berger) doesn’t overtly identify any of them; some are briefly spied individuals whose names and relationships remain unknown until the end. That approach is initially a bit disorienting and overwhelming, which is deliberate, as the director casts his audience as de facto guests at this shindig, swept up in a tide of conversations that are partially heard and barely understandable. From a purely experiential standpoint, the film conveys an all-encompassing sense of this boisterous environment, in which an avalanche of noise and commotion, tinsel, and booze, leave one’s head spinning.
Emily is the nominal protagonist of Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point, but Taormina’s gaze moves to and fro, only stopping to listen when something interesting is said. At outset, the most fascinating topic discussed is the fate of Antonia, whom Matty wants to move into a senior living facility both for her own good and for the health of his marriage. In an upstairs bedroom, his sisters Kathleen and Elyse (Maria Carucci) debate the pros and cons of this bombshell proposition while his brother Ray (Tony Savino) objects and offers to take in Antonia himself. A final decision isn’t reached, although in a later private chat, Matty informs Kathleen that a deal is already done, leaving her to process the news—which will forever change this yearly get-together and, with it, the future of the Balsanos—at the same time that she continues bristling with Emily.
Following a gigantic meal full of lively talk and an awkward toast by Bruce (Chris Lazzaro), Emily departs to hang out with an enormous collection of teens, including her cousin Michelle (Francesca Scorsese), and while their escapades are of a predictably juvenile sort, Taormina links the various phases of his story through a consistent focus on rituals. Whether it’s the Balsanos going outside to watch firemen speed by in Santa’s sleigh-themed vehicles and, later, crowd around the tree so everyone can open presents (the wrapping paper torn off with a gusto matched by the kids’ ensuing squeals of delight), or Emily and her friends pairing off for some canoodling in parked cars with frosty windshields, Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point suggests how customs provide togetherness, comfort, and stability, especially in and around the holidays.
The film’s scattered chatter offers just enough information about its myriad players to prevent befuddlement, and yet the director maintains more than a bit of mystery, the better to keep viewers on their toes and off-guard. Simultaneously, he delivers droll humor via snippets involving a pair of cops, Officer Gibson (Michael Cera) and Sergeant Brooks (Greg Turkington), whose affectless rapport isn’t altered by their decision to take in a stray dog or their encounters with Emily and company, who opt during their evening out to pester a local diner owner by messing with her dumpster. Cera and Turkington’s characters are sketches but the duo is well matched and their weirdo demeanors generate a few laughs, and they eventually run into former classmate Splint (Sawyer Spielberg), whose buddy messes with their patrol car’s siren as he ruminates on their impending 10-year class reunion.
Communion and compassion, sweetness and strife, and optimism and anguish course throughout Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point, which melds the euphoric excitement of kids trying to keep their eyes open long enough to see Saint Nick with the despondency of Ray, whose novel’s latest chapter—read aloud, without his permission, to some of the grown-up attendees—articulates his profound sadness over the paths not taken and the opportunities never seized.
Segueing freely between different tonal registers, the film captures the entire spectrum of thoughts and feelings that bubble up during this most festive of seasons, and its sentimentality proves as sincere as it is spiky. There’s no judgment here, nor any definitive resolutions; Taormina instead treats his characters with generous empathy, spying their highs and lows in offhand moments that fly by as quickly as the snow falls.
To its ambiguous end, Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point revels in the enticing tumult of its setting, attuning itself to the many ways in which such events afford solace and discomfort, be it a sing-along at the piano or a viewing of an old home movie that inspires both smiles and tears, and subtly creates connections between the past, present and future. As Sergeant Brooks says about the human mind, when it comes to the holidays—and life itself—“It’s not tidy.”
