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Holidays are a time for
families to come together. More often than not, these
little "reunions" manage to bring out the worst
in people and unpleasant episodes from the past get
dredged up and brutally dissected for the thousandth time.
Rather than limit herself to one family’s deluge of
dysfunctional dialogue at Thanksgiving, writer/director
Gurminder Chadha, zooms in on a multi-family multicultural
view of the holiday. We are introduced to the Jewish
family with the lesbian daughter and her lover, the
Hispanic family with the philandering husband and newly
liberated wife, the cross-generational Vietnamese family’s
struggle with old traditions vs. new realities, and the
successful yet fractured African American family. Happy
holidays!
Unlike BIG NIGHT where food is intended to
inspire pure sensory decadence, or LIKE WATER FOR
CHOCOLATE in which it takes on a mystical, magical
quality, Chadha’s uses food to illuminate the contrasts
between the families in the piece. While turkey is served
as the main course at every dinner table, it is prepared,
cooked and presented very differently by each family. The
roasted polenta, fajitas, spring rolls and homemade
macaroni and cheese that supplant the side dishes
typically associated with Thanksgiving – corn, cranberry
sauce and mashed potatoes – further enhance the feeling
(and reminded me that I had missed dinner). But movies do
not live by food alone.
What sets this film apart from its contemporaries is not
its parallel, intertwining plots, or the setting, but its
execution. Any of the plots could easily provide enough
fodder for a full-length movie, which makes their skillful
amalgamation in 106 minutes that much more impressive.
This is more remarkable when one takes into account that
no one in the voluminous (there are dozens of speaking
parts) and talented ensemble cast is there as window
dressing – every character is solid and has a clearly
defined purpose. Rarer still is the fact that the lion’s
share of screen time is devoted to the development of
strong female characters, which might explain what drew
Mercedes Ruehl, Julianna Marguelies and Joan Chen to the
project. My praise has not yet ended.
The dialogue is realistic and well written, and the
situations, though sometimes tongue-in-cheek, familiar and
believable. The pacing is quick, slowing down to take a
breather only when the audience needs it, but never leaves
the viewer behind. The editing is tight and clean, rarely
allowing any one scene to run too long. Finally, the
cinematographer deserves congratulations for the
exceptionally sumptuous food shots, I swear I could smell
the turkey. In movies, as in life however, nothing is
perfect.
The movie does lapse into stereotypes in several
instances, for example, could anyone be as truly annoying
and clueless as the character of Aunt Bea (played to
wonderful excess by Estelle Harris)? The film
also goes to the sentimentality well a little too often
and the ending, while clever, is contrived. While
noticeable, these flaws are merely mildly distracting, and
do not overwhelm the film.
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