By Geno McGahee
The Christmas movie review spree continues with the 2013 Hallmark Channel TV movie “PETE’S CHRISTMAS,” and it had an interesting premise: “A put-upon teen finds himself reliving the same miserable Christmas day over and over again.” Yes, it’s like GROUNDHOG DAY and everyone and their uncle points that out, but it’s a totally different movie and every idea has been done. This film is about a person reliving the same day over and over but it’s not a copy of the 1993 Bill Murray movie.
Pete (Zachary Gordon) is an outcast in his family and is heading into Christmas with little expectations of anything good. He gets bullied by his bigger brother, Jake (Wesley Morgan), and intruded upon by his younger brother, Kenny (Peter DaCunha). His parents, Pamela (Molly Parker) and father Ronald (Rick Roberts), tend to blame him for everything and that’s the only time that they pay attention to him. Rick Roberts was also the dad in the movie I just watched “THE TOWN CHRISTMAS FORGOT”, which was made in 2010 and the producers of this must have realized that he was perfect for Xmas dramas. He once again brings his A game.
Grandpa (Bruce Dern) shows up unexpectedly and it stirs things up. He and his son, Ronald, have been at odds for years and the animosity increased when Grandma died. Ronald notes that what should have brought them closer made them farther apart. Bruce Dern can’t help but to steal every scene that he’s in. This has been the case throughout his career and he can play just about any role. Here, he plays the sentimental and gruff grandfather who wants to tell his family that he loves them but just can’t do it. He instead jabs and growls.
Christmas day goes horrible for Pete. He wakes up in a puddle of urine, gets hit in the head with a football, gets hassled by bullies, rips his pants in front of his new neighbor, Katie (Bailee Madison), gets food poisoning and his parents forget to buy him a gift. At the end of the night, his angry grandfather storms out of the house, but not before giving him a little empty wooden box as a gift. The next morning he wakes up and it’s Christmas again.
Pete now relives the same day over and over and begins to realize the control he can have now. He shines in football and starts reversing the issues of the day and deflecting the blame, but Katie begins to open his eyes and he starts to see a bigger family problem. He wants to stop the war between his father and grandfather, but it’s not easy.
As he repeats the days, he spends more time with his grandfather, trying to break through the hard shell and get him to return to the family for good. This is when Dern really shines. At one point, he mentions that he spent too much time chasing money and giving away time with his family and it cost him dearly. It was such a great delivery and it showed the softer side of the character, and gave Pete a better window into how his grandfather ticked and how he can handle the problem.
Other problems arise and he begins pecking away at those and realizing that the true gift of Christmas is family unity and joy. Pete and his brothers are able to bring back the past in a way that it clicked with Grandpa and their dad and it leads to another memorable dramatic scene. Both Ronald and his father share the same stubbornness and that has been the key problem to their long rift. When they are faced with this memory, the walls begin to crumble and the Christmas from hell turns into the Christmas that saved the family.
PETE’S CHRISTMAS is a really good Xmas movie. It’s warm and the conflict between father and son is very compelling. Credit to Dern and Roberts for their performances. They worked well off each other and they were both easy to understand.
I recommend PETE’S CHRISTMAS. If you are looking for a holiday marathon, this should be thrown into the lineup.
Rating: 7/10
