Me too, bud.

Harlie’s Very Merry Movie List — A Christmas movie with no snow, but a solid amount of soul.

I come bearing a gift this time: a glimmer of hope after a soul breaking experience just 24 hours ago. While Just Another Christmas could probably be classified as just another movie, watching it after the reckoning that is The Christmas Catch transforms it to another level.

As always, for readers new and old, here are the rules for my Merry Movie Watch.

1. I can only watch Christmas movies.
2. I can only watch Christmas movies that have come out on the same day of viewing.
3. Only in the case when no films have been released on the day of viewing may I watch a Christmas movie filmed in years past. However, it must be a Christmas movie which I have previously not seen.
4. On Christmas Eve, I will watch Die Hard.

As a quick side note, these rules put me in the precarious position of having to choose between Just Another Christmas and “Chico Bon Bon and the Very Berry Holiday.” I am eternally grateful that I made the final executive decision that a runtime of less than 25 minutes excludes a contender from the viewing table. Sorry, Chico Bon Bon, I’m sure you are wonderful, but today wasn’t your day.

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(WARNING: THERE ARE SPOILERS AND THIS FILM IS IN PORTUGESE. DO WITH THIS INFORMATION WHAT YOU WILL.)

Title of Film: Just Another Christmas

Rating: TV-MA

Release Date: December 3, 2020

Where to Watch: Netflix

Synopsis: A holiday-hating father learns the value of Christmas after he has to speed-run through life, losing nearly everything of importance.

My original catch line was “Scrooge meets Christmas Vacation meets Click” and even though it didn’t make the cut, I will stand by it here. Just Another Christmas is a Brazilian take on the classic Christmas dilemma where a man takes the life he has for granted and has to be shown just how good he has it. Our protagonist is a middle-aged father of two with a beautiful wife and a beautiful home. Jorge has it made except for the fact that he has to share his birthday with Baby Jesus, which is the source of his animosity toward the Christmas season. While it is warranted to feel slightly insecure when you have to compete with the holy Son for a holiday, I will hold to the opinion that it shouldn’t inform your entire personality. This guy isn’t an asshole because his birthday is on Christmas. He’s an asshole because he just… is one. Which makes it difficult to root for him, even when life takes an astonishingly hard turn for him.

Stories of redemption require the fall of the hero and even if ours isn’t likeable in any way, the narrative chooses to give him a second chance and we must follow. Jorge’s fall from grace unfolds as our protagonist takes an accidental nose dive off the top of his home, kickstarting his eternal Christmas hell ride through the decades. Born from the curse of a “mute” grandfather comes the thick plot of Just Another Christmas, as Jorge clumsily makes an amnesiac journey through life, only having self-awareness on the day of Christmas Eve. It’s an interesting concept, but could have done with better execution.

Somehow, when Jorge comes to on Christmas Eve each year, a version of himself lives out the other 364 days as a cheating, lying, smoking, no good fellow. And while the Jorge we get to know is the exact opposite of Dark Jorge, it feels strange that his entire family would be fine with accepting Light Jorge just one day of the year. This is especially true for his wife, who knows Dark Jorge and has to grapple with his four-year affair (and their subsequent divorce), but then looks at Light Jorge and sees the man she once loved. This movie presents themes of mortality, isolation, and the heavy weight of regret through the lens of a Christmas-purgatory, but fails to follow through as the movie opts to stick to the comedy genre. Much in the way Click (an Adam Sandler movie I am not proud to say made me cry) shies away from profound feeling, Just Another Christmas grasps humanity by its heart, just to squeeze it while making a fart noise with its mouth.

There is one moment when this movie finally hits the mark. This is a man who has to live life on fast forward. His kids grow up into adults, he loses his wife (only to win her back by the power of good Christmas will), and he doesn’t even know his first dog has died because his family just keeps replacing him with an identical pooch. Yet, he somehow manages to hold onto a sense of peace, knowing that he is becoming a better man, knowing that he is finally starting to see Christmas for what it could have been for him all this time. And once he finally figures out who he wants to be, once he finally has the rhythm of a true Christmas spirit, he finds out his daughter has terminal breast cancer. Jorge knows that when he goes to sleep that night, he is going to wake up a year from then without her. So, he takes her favorite movie, one that he never got to watch with her while she was young, and they curl up on the couch together, a father holding his daughter for the last time.

It wouldn’t be a Christmas movie without a dash of miracle and even though he loses his daughter, Jorge gets a chance to go back in time and do it all again. And he does. He chooses to go back and he chooses to be a good man. It’s a happy ending that feels well-earned, one that I was grateful to reach after a surprisingly long and emotionally-tolling watch.

To wrap things up, I would love to present the Holly Berry points awarded by my roommates, myself, and Christmas Movie Expert Kris Ford. I had my usual guests Valerie and Dayne, but I added one last roomie to the mix, the always lovely Bianca. Because I don’t want to make this too long, I have averaged their points into one “Roomie Scale,” but I do include their separate, final commentary.

The Roomie’s Holly Berries

1. Plot: 3.5/5
2. Twist: 3.5/5
3. Set Design: 4/5
4. Characters/Acting: 4/5
5. Christmas: 3.5/5

For a total of 18.5 out of 25 Holly Berries, Just Another Christmas takes the lead on this Very Merry List and for all the right (and maybe some wrong) reasons. Bianca, a Christmas Movie Observer, stated, “While I enjoyed the movie, I wish we knew what happened throughout the year leading up to Christmas Eve.” Dayne, our local Christmas Movie Tolerator, expressed much of the same sentiment, but added, “It is surprising to me that even though this was a dubbed foreign film, it captured me far more than the American film I watched last night.” Finally, our in-house Christmas Movie Commentator, Valerie, tied up the Roomie Movie Commentary with an important piece of criticism: “I don’t know what the perfect picture of Christmas is, but it seems like the ones we have watched so far haven’t really gotten it yet.”

Harlie’s Holly Berries

1. Plot: 3/5
2. Twist: 3/5
3. Set Design: 4/5
4. Characters/Acting: 3.5/5
5. Christmas: 4/5

With a 17.5 out of 25 Holly Berries, there isn’t much else to add except I would like to thank Just Another Christmas for giving me the gift of hope. Not because of what happens in the movie since the daughter dying really kicked me square in the solar plexus, but the fact that not every movie in this Christmas season will be an absolute chunk of coal in my stocking.

I would be remiss not to include the very special berries awarded by Christmas Movie Expert, Kris Ford. In a surprising turn, she came below the rest of us this time around:

1. Plot: 4/5
2. Twist: 1/5
3. Set Design: 3/5
4. Characters/Acting: 2.5/5
5. Christmas: 5/5

A 15.5 out of 25 Holly Berries does feel like a more appropriate score for a movie that lets a dad essentially get away with an affair and elder abuse. This is why she’s the Christmas Movie Expert, my mom knows what she’s about.

Don’t be mean to grandpas.