A Christmas Story

Okay, I know this isn’t a perfect movie, perhaps not close to it. We just watched it again and I teasingly pointed out small plot or action gaffes here or there. But for me it is my all time favorite Christmas movie. Partly I suppose because it feeds into my memories of growing up in a snowy, cold small town, though this predates my childhood by several years. And rarely do I feel like an ensemble cast made up of both adult and child actors do so well together. The Parkers, husband and wife, have their duel over the “major award,” and at times their sensibilities reside on different planets: his love of sports and her submersion into the details of raising children, but they are a unit and comically in love. And I even think part of the charm for me is the voice of the narrator. Adult Ralphie is of course Jean Shepherd, one of the screenwriters and the author of the source book “In God we Trust; All Others Pay Cash, a book I once owned in paperback. For years I listened to his radio show, late at night, my ears glued to a small transistor radio. He spoke in a hushed, dramatic voice about his childhood and other stories. I remember once he intoned about a magic place called “Maine,” where his father hunted or wanted to hunt. Of course I lived in Maine so it was a sort of revelation to hear it was a special place. (And it is.) So A Christmas Story ticks all of the boxes for me in nostalgia and humor and covers the major elements of Christmas for kids, all achieved without the Christmas miracle a lot of holiday films trot out at the end.

Without no doubt, a good film, where things work very well in a very simple way. When we talk about Christmas-themed films, the choice is so huge that the difficult part has been showing things that are substantially different or original. What this film does is simply tell us a good story… and it works like that! It's not a film that enchants us, and I, personally, hardly see myself seeing it again. But the fact is that it manages to be much better than a lot of the rubbish that appears around Christmas. The script is simple and so direct that it can be summed up in one sentence: it is a description of a child's Christmas and the way in which he, through various means, tries to get the gift he most wants to receive, and which his parents seem disinclined to give. give him: an air pressure gun. And this leads me to talk about the first point that really surprised me about this film: the fact that a child is offered a gun. I'm not from the USA, I'm Portuguese, and when I was a child I had toy shotguns and pistols, but they didn't shoot, they were made of plastic. An air rifle, in my understanding, is still a weapon. Therefore, I was shocked by the idea of seeing an air gun for sale as a toy, among other toys. However, it is well known that we, in Europe, do not have the almost emotional relationship with weapons that North Americans have, and the laws that regulate them here are much tougher than the laws in the USA. Therefore, I know that my strangeness is due to cultural differences, but I still felt it with great intensity in this film. Aside from this, I honestly don't have any major criticisms to point out: the dialogues are good, and the situations created are quite believable, even those that seem more crazy (such as the dogs that eat the turkey). There are many beautiful moments that move us, whether because of the affectionate relationship of that family, or because of the evocation of the best memories of each person's childhood: when watching the film, we remember our own past with a tear in our eyes, the people who no longer live close to us or are no longer present in this world. I felt old watching this film, I thought a lot about what I experienced, about the speed at which life takes turns and about the dreams I had at that boy's age (many of them I fulfilled and many were left behind)... But I'm not here to talk about me! The film seems simple, it even seems cheap to make, if we consider the simplicity of the effects, the effectiveness and modesty of the sets, the very unpretentious way in which everything is presented to us, from the costumes to the cinematography itself, which is nothing special, but which works. efficiently. I would particularly highlight the exquisite way in which the production managed to recreate the family atmosphere experienced at the end of the 1940s, right in the aftermath of the Second World War. The cast also doesn't have big names, at least for me: young Peter Billingsley does an excellent job and is elegantly supported by Darren McGavin and Melinda Dilon. I dare say that this was the best of each of these actors.

Reviews2

Peter McGinn

Filipe Manuel Neto