‘Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point’ Review: This Holiday Indie Is a Few of My Favorite Things
At the end of Peter Godfrey’s “Christmas in Connecticut” — the greatest Christmas movie of all time (don’t fight me on this) — beloved character actor Sydney Greenstreet, having just emerged from a comedy kerfuffle of epic proportions, can think of nothing more to do than throw his mighty head in the air and declare “What a Christmas! Ho ho, what a Christmas!”
I could also think of little else to say, at first, about Tyler Taormina’s peculiar and lovely “Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point.” What a Christmas indeed. The film is an eclectic hodgepodge of realism and dreamlike, dare I say Lynchian mannerisms. It’s set in the 2000s but it belts wall-to-wall mid-20th century pop hits, like a family-friendly cousin to Kenneth Anger’s “Scorpio Rising.” When Peggy March’s “Wind-Up Doll” drowns out...