Feliz Navidon’t

Despite a great cast, Nothing Like the Holidays
is a tired collection of Christmas clichés

FIESTA FLOP:
Elizabeth Peña, John Leguizamo and Debra Messing

by CHRISTOPHER SYKES

Ahhh Christmas. Every lapsed Catholic’s favourite time of the year and longtime friend of the big screen. After all, what’s Xmas if not the perfect excuse to hunker down on the couch with loved ones while watching classics like Miracle on 34th Street or How the Grinch Stole Christmas (animated version, natch)? The Xmas flick tends to be astoundingly white-bread, so when I caught the trailer for Nothing Like the Holidays, I have to own up to having felt a tinge of curiosity about what Mexican director Alfredo de Villa (Washington Heights) and his Latino cast could serve up.

That curiosity was as misguided as sipping eggnog in July. Holidays is little more than a run-of-the-mill collection of tired Xmas flick stereotypes diced and rolled into a metaphorical mouldy fajita.

Despite the flatness of the pic, the cast is a veritable who’s-who of prized Latino actors including character-actor-turned-headliner John Leguizamo (Moulin Rouge), leather-faced Luis Guzmán (Boogie Nights) and household matriarch Elizabeth Peña (Jacob’s Ladder).

Peña in particular provides some much-needed spark as Anna Rodriguez, the disenchanted wife of serial flirting bodega owner Edy (played by British-born Alfred Molina). As more than his eyes have wandered in the past, Peña becomes suspicious of Molina’s tight-lipped incoming phone calls. While the family is gathered over holiday dinner, she announces she’s had enough and wants a divorce.

Calamity ensues within the Puerto Rican family when big-billing lawyer Leguizamo and siblings Roxanna (Vanessa Ferlito), a struggling actress, and Jesse (Freddy Rodríguez), fresh back from Iraq, each take sides as to who’s at fault. While it never digresses into full-blown melodrama, there’s more than a few moments where it’s perilously close, and, without giving away the twist, there’s little doubt the phone calls are of a more complex nature.

While the first hour or so is actually quite enjoyable and chuckle-worthy (not least of which is thanks to Guzmán’s portrayal of screw-up cousin Johnny), it spirals into predictability around Molina’s big reveal. I certainly didn’t have enough rum in my nog before watching it.

NOTHING LIKE THE HOLIDAYS OPENS
THIS FRIDAY, DEC. 12