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THE BEST CHRISTMAS PAGEANT EVER
Director: Dallas Jenkins Cast: Molly Belle Wright, Judy Greer, Beatrice Schneider, Pete Holmes, Sebastian Billingsley-Rodriguez, Mason D. Nelligan, Matthew Lamb, Ewan Wood, Essek Moore, Kynlee Heiman, Nolan Grantham, Kirk B.R. Woller, Lauren Graham MPAA
Rating: Running Time: 1:39 Release Date: 11/8/24 |
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Review by Mark Dujsik | November 7, 2024 The most feared people in the sleepy little town of Emmanuel, the setting of The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, aren't the usual suspects. They're a group of siblings who lie, steal, smoke cigars, cuss, and set the occasional fire around town. Well, the Herdman kids set at least one fire (that could be proved), incinerating an old tool shed that everyone agreed was unsightly and probably should have been torn down years ago. Our narrator points out that, even when the Herdman children did good that one time, it was accidental and while trying to do something bad. Kids who have read Barbara Robinson's source material, a children's novel from 1972, probably did so initially viewing the Herdmans as a bunch of bullies and ne'er-do-wells, deserving of some fear and maybe contempt. The basic story of co-writer/director Dallas Jenkins' movie does seem familiar enough, as if it might have been one of those books that every kid of a certain age and generation has read and largely forgotten over the years. The premise—at least as the story itself suggests from the very start—is enticing enough to capture a young reader's attention. The badly behaved kids will somehow find themselves at the center of the town's annual Christmas pageant, which re-tells the story of the birth of Jesus of Nazareth. What kind of chaos will the Herdmans bring to such a reserved, beloved, and respected annual tradition? What's fascinating about watching (or maybe revisiting, because childhood is filled with stories that just become part of the deepest recesses of memory) this material with adult eyes is how one interprets the Herdman kids from the very start. Yes, they're juvenile delinquents with bad attitudes and a poor way of treating other people, but you kind of have to appreciate the consistency and dedication they have to causing trouble in a place as plain and dull as this town. Without them, what would the residents talk about, anyway? Plus, one has to admire the backbone of the littlest of the Herdman children, who goes after little kids, according to the narrator, even when those kids are technically bigger than her. The big thing, though, is that Jenkins makes the situation of the Herdman kids clear from the start—for those who pay attention to more than what people say and do. The children live in a small house that looks abandoned, except for the fact that the kids do run out of it every day to go to school and cause havoc. They wear the same clothes over and over, don't seem to keep clean, and never have a parent around to tell them what to do or what they should be doing. These kids are more troubled than troublesome, and the most effective parts of this movie are when the filmmakers put that idea above everything else. Obviously, the storytelling in that regard has its limitations, because this isn't the story of the Herdmans, who begin as antagonists and become the sympathetic heart of a tale that, unfortunately, only has so much space for them. Instead, it's the story of Beth (Molly Belle Wright), one of the many kids who see the Herdman children as pests, and her mother Grace (Judy Greer), who takes over directorial duties for the pageant, and the staging of the pageant itself, which becomes the center of local controversy when the Herdmans forcibly volunteer themselves into all the leading roles. It's a funny idea, filled with the potential for mischief and shenanigans, but this isn't, admirably, a particularly funny story. No, it's about seeing people as more than the sum of reputation born of gossip and prejudice, behavior, and the judgmental attitudes of others. Even if the screenwriters (the director, Platte Clark, Darin McDaniel, and Ryan Swanson) focus a bit too much on what discovering basic empathy means to everyone except the Herdman kids, this little tale becomes surprisingly moving by its climax, which subverts every expectation the material has established for itself. The restricted perspective, though, does become a problem, because the Herdman children are more interesting than any other character in this story. They're led by eldest sister Imogene (Beatrice Schneider), who loves the idea of participating in a play, because it's just like all the movies she and her siblings sneak into all the time. She volunteers to play Mary, Jesus' mother, because it's a chance to appear sweet and pretty, like a painting of the woman hanging in the church's entryway. Imogene is, after all, just a kid who wants to be appreciated, liked, and even loved, and it's not as if any of that is happening in her home. Beth starts to figure this out, as she helps the Herdmans learn about the Nativity story, and Grace does, too, as the outcast children bring practical ideas of what Mary and her husband Joseph must have experienced and felt. The movie possesses a not-so-subtle religious angle to it, and that, too, keeps the Herdman children and their countless, mostly unexplored issues at a distance. Ultimately, they're not here to be the subjects of real empathy but to teach the town about the true meaning of Christmas. The Best Christmas Pageant Ever may subvert its premise in clever and well-meaning ways, but it's not quite enough to give the Herdmans their real due as more than messengers for everybody else. Copyright © 2024 by Mark Dujsik. All rights reserved. |
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(for thematic material and brief underage smoking)
