Films about Family and Holiday Horrors

Each Thanksgiving my sister and I celebrate by watching Home for the Holidays (1995) the Jodie Foster film starring Holly Hunter, Robert Downey Jr. and more. What we like about this film is the way it takes the rosy holiday gathering and reveals the darker underside: the family tensions, the hidden agendas, the words that can be delivered with only a look.

While Elizabeth Bennett has reason to shudder at the horrific behavior of her mother and younger sisters in Pride and Prejudice, it’s clearly not a problem limited to England’s landed gentry in the 1800s. As Claudia Larson heads home for the Thanksgiving holiday she calls her brother, Tommy (Downey, Jr) and begs him to come home too because she can’t endure it alone. As one who has long feared the trial of bringing home an “outsider” to witness that which has become a familiar and contemptible scene, I can relate to all the emotions stirred up in these stories.

One of the more powerful scenes in the film involves the “perfect” older sister JoAnne played by Cynthia Stevenson, and her emotional meltdown as her illusions of a perfect Thanksgiving dissolve into a mess of turkey all over her dress. She and her family leave early and when Claudia (Hunter) delivers some leftovers later that evening, Claudia faces the harsh reality of a sister who wants nothing to do with her. The bitterness and sadness evident in the manicured life of JoAnne makes all the chaos back at the family home less horrifying.

In a recent film, The Family Stone (2005), the central characters, played by an all-star cast are actually closely knit and it’s the outsiders who pay for daring to violate the sacred Stone traditions. Claire Danes, who also holds a small role in Home for the Holidays, is just one of Stone’s key players. She shares the screen with Diane Keaton, Rachel McAdams, Dermot Mulroney, Craig T. Nelson and one of my favorites, Luke Wilson. Sarah Jessica Parker portrays the awkward, uptight girlfriend of Everett, the perfect son, played by Mulroney.

Surprised by the film when I actually saw it in the theatre over Christmas, I cried more than I laughed. (Five kleenexes worth. Though I laughed too.) I am not sure exactly what I expected but I think the previews were a little misleading. Still, as I discussed the film today in the break room at work I found myself tearing up again at the memory of various parts of the movie. The painful tension that Meredith (Parker) feels is all too real and there are moments that made me feel as if --I-- was trespassing on a family’s private time… their ties and personal jokes… their traditions…. their pain and their history.

There were times when I felt that Papa Stone (Nelson), had his work cut out for him in dealing with his handful of a wife played by Keaton… While the irritating factor was decidedly absent, there was a bit of Mrs. Bennett in it all for me. The movie felt real and only lost me a couple times when the romantic element tried to creep its way in--perhaps to pay off that promise offered in the previews to those who paid good money to see this film. There was also the somewhat ignored plot element of sister Susannah’s (Elizabeth Reaser) absent husband, as if this bit fell to the editing room floor. If there was a downside, it was that the ending seemed a bit too neat for me and somewhat implausible. Though once you’ve shared a Christmas like this perhaps it isn’t all that easy to extricate yourself… and by the end of Christmas Day I suspected that Meredith had endured enough and had left her mark forever.

I have no doubt that my sister and I will add this Christmas movie to our holiday repertoire and that this bittersweet tale will remind me once again that it’s never as bad as it seems and that the love and pain can be intermingled in a way that is sometimes quite beautiful if you know where to look or at least amusing if you are willing to laugh at yourself a bit too.

-Kate