By Geno McGahee
It’s that time of year again. Every year, I get into the Christmas spirit and go on an Xmas movie review spree. The first one for 2016 is a film called “THE CHRISTMAS PAGEANT”, written by Mark Valenti. Valenti’s other writing credits include BARNEY: PLAY WITH BARNEY and BARNEY: BIG WORLD ADVENTURE: THE MOVIE. The guy who writes those terrible Barney movies wrote this? Well, we can only go up from there.
Vera Parks (Melissa Gilbert) is a big director that has done a great deal of work on Broadway, but she is having a tough time finding work of late. Her agent finds a job for her in a small community, directing a Christmas pageant. She reluctantly accepts because the money is right and she needs the work.
The community is your typical group when it comes to these sorts of holiday movies. They are sort of stuck in time, small town, friendly people. They accept Vera immediately with the exception of Beverly (Kate Flannery). Beverly is miserable because she has a health problem and she takes it out on poor Vera, challenging every idea she has for this Christmas pageant. Beverly wants everything to remain the same as it has been for the last few years and resents any change. Change is difficult for some, but she doesn’t have to be a bitch about it.
Vera moves into a bed and breakfast and runs into an old flame at a coffee shop. Jack (Robert Mailhouse), a former big businessman turned small town coffee shop owner, once dated Vera but would dump her when she became too focused on her career. Unbeknownst to her, Jack put up the money to get her to direct the Christmas pageant and wants to rekindle their relationship. It is mostly due to the fact that his wife died and the women in the town aren’t that impressed with a sappy coffee shop owner. Even his “want cream with that” pick up line didn’t work.
The pageant begins to shape up. Vera even convinces Anita (Jennifer Hall) to sing, which is a new feature. She has the mayor speak to the audience and keeps adding new things, but that damn Beverly won’t shut up. Eventually, Vera tells Beverly to sit on it and she pulls out of the pageant. Good riddance to bad rubbish. But Vera isn’t a bad person and she goes to check on her and Beverly confesses that she had a medical checkup and they may have found something. A few minutes later, we find out that she is fine and she rejoices, giving Vera a big hug. If I was Vera, I would have given her a left hook to the bread basket. All that shit because she is having a rough time? I hate people like that. They’re miserable and they take it out on you. Those people suck.
Unfortunately for the pageant, Vera gets an unbelievable opportunity in the city, directing a big star in a major play. She pulls out, but it doesn’t go over well. Jack isn’t happy and his daughter, Kristin (Lennon Wynn), gets upset. She was having a good time with Vera. She was eying her as her new mother. I wonder when Jack’s wife died. I hope he let the body get cold before he started poking around for a replacement. I think this element of the story needed some more development. Perhaps it would have been better if Jack wasn’t so eager to get with Vera. Then again, he may have been sick and tired of paying all those rental fees for the adult programming he was binge watching.
After working on the big production in the city, Vera realizes that she should be at the Christmas pageant. It doesn’t take long to convince her when the star of the play, Leo Brenner (Richard Portnow), goes off on her. He was a diva. Is “diva” the right term for an actor that treats everyone like shit and thinks they’re above everyone? If I’m wrong and I offended anyone, I apologize.
THE CHRISTMAS PAGEANT is much better than anything with Barney, but it is a paint by numbers film. The cast does a very good job in this and it has its moments. It’s not a bad watch, but it’s nothing new. I recommend it but there are a lot of other holiday movies out there that are much better.
Rating: 5/10
