The Fitzgerald Family Christmas

A big family is a catalog of problems, a big family at the holidays is a catalog of problems reaching its boiling point. If you've lived in a big family you know it, if you've seen one or two films about big families, you probably know it too. Here lies the failure of this nice little film. Don't get me wrong, it's fairly well acted, the director choosing a low key approach that suits the genre well, so it's not a catastrophe, in fact it might be a good pastime if you can relate. Thing is the plot is not only loaded with cliché, it's devoid of any refreshing surprise or plot twist. And it tends to solve most of the problems it's looking into in a superficial almost casual manner. An abusive husband, falling for a creepy old man, falling for a girl who's too young for you, everything solved nice and easy, like it was no more than a ploy to cover a few more minutes on screen. It's not a good feeling to end with after a film with which we're suppose to relate.