In most Christmas movies, the spoils of wealth are a given. In One Magic Christmas, a grade-school kid's friends ask what Santa will bring her. Life drains from her face as she's resigned to, "Nothing, I guess."
The Grainger family has only $5000 in the bank, with greedy realtors attempting to repossess their home. The mother Ginny (Mary Steenburgen), a disrespected grocery clerk, has no Christmas spirit, keeping her rare moments of vivacity to herself, as when she sings "Stop in the Name of Love" in the shower. Canadians can always tell when a movie is shot in their country because of particularities of road signs and money. One Magic Christmas makes its locations (Scarborough, Owen Sound, Collingwood and Meaford, Ontario) evident by capturing the ugly winter regionalism where dirt from cars has turned snow-covered streets sickly brown.
In holiday movies, not believing in Santa is not believing in God, and make no mistake, Ginny is an atheist. Her husband (Gary Basaraba) is without work, but plays into the fantasies and hopes of his young children, Abbie (Elisabeth Harnois) and Cal (Robbie Magwood).
Midway through the film, he's murdered by a down-on-his-luck neighbour robbing a bank.
Good lord, what was going on with Walt Disney Studios in the mid 1980s?!
I haven't even mentioned that young Abbie has a "secret friendship" with a trench coat-wearing grown up stranger named Gideon (Harry Dean Stanton) she meets on the cold streets at night. These moments are, through a jaded but impossible to dismiss 21st century perspective, evocative of child molestation. The man says he's a friend, and he is! He also died in an accident. He's an angel.
I know, I know! But dammit, I think this is a good movie. I'll also add that I last saw One Magic Christmas in theatres at age six, and found none of this objectionable. Watching it now, it has more than just problems. It goes places that are downright reckless in how it resolves issues through fantasy. But parents and critics forget that kids are tough. They value movies that go dark places, and can delight and scar and heal. As directed by Phillip Borsos (of The Grey Fox), One Magic Christmas is uncommonly naturalistic and adult.
People watch movies for different reasons. It used to be that critics went to movies to see themselves and humanity reflected in fascinating ways, but then "serious" movies became about pushing agendas, and that approach has been mostly lost. Borsos actually comes close to the anomaly of Jim Sheridan's truthful, non-judgemental family dynamics in In America and Brothers.
And yet, I can't absolve this film of what it does and where it goes. It isn't wrong for a realistic film to ask, "Do you believe in magic?" It's just troubling when magic elements are introduced to resolve believable struggles and stitch deep wounds. The notion would rankle those troubled by how grim One Magic Christmas already is, but I would suggest part of the reason the switch to fantasy feels false is that the movie is afraid to dwell in its period of abject misery for long enough.
The magic Abbie encounters extends to others in her life, making it different than a Pan's Labyrinth case of a child's imaginative escape. But like that movie, and Disney's Return to Oz, also released in 1985, One Magic Christmas is about a kid persevering through hell with a belief that there's something greater.
Personal History
My mother took me to see One Magic Christmas at the Penhorn theatre in Dartmouth in 1985. Then I got her the movie's novelization as a Christmas present. I don't think that was on her list.
The Meaning of Christmas
If there's one thing I've learned so far from watching these movies, it's that having no Christmas spirit is the worst thing you can do without being arrested. In Ginny's case, one's expected to take that as a lack of optimism and joy in life. This is a mother-daughter story, and Abbie helps her mom change her perspective. One Magic Christmas really doesn't get enough credit for encouraging abstract thinking.
Tomorrow: Santa Claus: The Movie
No comments:
Post a Comment