HELP FOR THE HOLIDAYS
Santa's elf leaves the North Pole to help a family during Christmastime.
So... how's your holiday season coming along so far? Are you having a good time doing whatever it is you do around this time of year? Me? I just watched Help For The Holidays, and now I'm supposed to talk about it for a while. I'm not sure I really want to talk about it for a while, or even at all, but here I am.
Here's the skinny: some glum kid in Glendale named Billy sent Santa Claus an emergency letter, bitching and moaning about how his parents don't have time for him or his big sister ever since their big holiday-themed knick-knack shop became such a local sensation, and he's at the end of his rope. The parents are so fed up with Christmas in general that they don't even bother to decorate their own home until Christmas Eve, with leftover items from their store and only for the benefit of their children, so if the bigs had their way they wouldn't bother at all.
Billy also wants somebody to shoot some hoops with him, and his big sister Other Billy wants a dancing partner to help her prepare for the big holiday recital that's coming up very soon. So Santa summons his sexiest elf, a cheerful chum named Christine, and he sets her up with a new identity in Glendale, inserting her seamlessly into the local community in order for Christine to gain employment as Billy and Other Billy's new nanny, gaining the family's trust and rekindling the love of the Christmas season for their mother and father.
He kits Christine up with the full CIA-via-Hogwarts kit, including a furnished apartment, an inconspicuous wardrobe, a magic book inked in elfin blood that will answer any questions she asks it, and a purse with the power to generate whatever she may need for any given situation, including money in whatever denomination she requires. Christine has officially joined the ranks of Santa's Angels.
He also told Christine the golden rule: do not reveal your true identity or become emotionally attached to your charges. To break the golden rule means eternal banishment to the Phantom Zone, and elves hate the Phantom Zone, so that's no good. Isn't this a weird rule? This poor elf is assigned to perform a task that is almost entirely dependent upon emotions, and Santa doesn't want her to get emotional? How exactly is she supposed to teach this family the true meaning of Christmas without getting emotionally attached in some form? She's not a fucking sociopath, Santa. Of course she breaks the golden rule! I imagine they always break the golden rule! What did you expect, you fat asshole!?
Christine does a bunch of wacky shit, the kids love her, and their uncle, Big Billy, that guy who owns the local tree nursery, really loves her. This guy starts leering at poor Christine the moment he lays eyes on her, and he never, ever stops. And it's creepy, because despite all outward appearances of womanhood, Christine has the emotional maturity of a child. She's spent her entire life in a fantastical world of magic and mirth, surrounded by the trappings of childhood wonder and joy. She doesn't know jack shit about the world outside the North Pole. She's never dated anybody before. She doesn't even know what a hot dog is, so it's really bizarre watching this big goon hit on Christine every single time he bumps into her, which is as often as possible.
This is a strange story. On the surface, it's very simple. An elf uses her charms to help a family in trouble learn to love Christmas again. Easy enough. Tried and true formula. We've seen it all before. But it's the character of Christine that transforms the story into something else entirely if one bothers to scratch that surface just a little bit. This is really a coming-of-age story if you look at it the right way. Christine yearns to visit the "real world", eager to sample the everyday lives of human men and women. Santa Claus uses young Billy's family emergency as a chance to kill two birds with one stone by sending Christine, allowing her to satisfy her curiosity regarding how the other half lives, so to speak.
Thrust into this strange new world, Christine has to adapt to the alien customs of the people with whom she must live, and as she strives to change the lives of this human family, they end up changing her just as profoundly, if not more so. Exposed to this seemingly chaotic culture, she can't help but be moved by it, coming away changed in a fundamental way. In the end, she falls in love with Big Billy and his family and renounces her old life and everything she has ever known to stay with these people she has come to adore with all her heart. Wait, am I thinking of Arwen in The Lord Of The Rings? Eh, it's basically the same story, I guess.
Christine begins the story as a girl, naïve and immature, but at the end of the story she's become a woman, having learned what true love really is and making a difficult choice in order to hold on to that love. I'm not sure if elves are immortal in this movie's mythology, so I have no idea the true depths of Christine's sacrifice to become Mrs. Big Billy, but I imagine her decision was still a difficult one.
I was happy to see Summer Glau playing the elf Christine, simply because I have never before seen this woman play a character with a full emotional range before this. Granted, I haven't seen a lot of her work, but her two big roles (an emotionless robot in Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles and the emotionally damaged River Tam in Firefly) never really allowed the actress to play a simply happy character. In Help For The Holidays, she really throws herself into the role of Christine, playing the elf as a grinning bundle of exuberance and enthusiasm. She actually looks like she's having a good time in a few scenes, which is so strange to me. Strange, but nice.
I guess the movie is good. I think I enjoyed it. None of the actors were really terrible, and the story was fine. I don't think it ever really manages to come alive, despite Summer Glau's committed performance. The story mostly just unfolds in a completely predictable manner, and the love story between Christine and Big Billy is severely undercooked. These two characters only get together in the end because the script demands it, and the actors have absolutely no chemistry. Big Billy wants to jam Christine, and in the end she agrees to let him jam her on Christmas, because love. She gave up being an elf for this plank of particle board? Sure. Whatever.
You know what? Fuck this movie. I don't give a shit about Help For The Holidays. Summer Glau was cool in it, but one good performance does not equal a good movie. It's boring, predictable garbage, and I was very distracted by the presence of actor Dan Gauthier, who played Billy's father, Billy Sr. He played a smug lawyer named Brian in Saved By The Bell: Hawaiian Style, and he was in league with a wicked real estate developer who was trying to develop the land occupied by a hotel owned by Kelly Kapowski's grandfather. In the end, his nefarious scheme was foiled and Kelly punched him square in the face for good measure, so a happy ending.
But the actor was just so good at playing an oily sphincter that I can never really see him as anything else. Throughout the 1980's and 1990's, he just kept popping up in various television and film projects, and he was always a dripping creeper. The man is basically a bargain basement William Zabka, and that's all he'll ever be. In Help For The Holidays, he's mostly relegated to the background as Billy Sr., never given more than a handful of lines and treated mostly as window dressing rather than a present and caring father. He's just there, hanging out somewhere near the back in most of the movie, never making a meaningful contribution to the narrative.
So he's like a real father, I guess.
I don't care about this movie. I don't want to talk about it anymore. I've got better things to do. I think. So I'm gonna go now.
VERDICT: ZABKA
So... how's your holiday season coming along so far? Are you having a good time doing whatever it is you do around this time of year? Me? I just watched Help For The Holidays, and now I'm supposed to talk about it for a while. I'm not sure I really want to talk about it for a while, or even at all, but here I am.
Here's the skinny: some glum kid in Glendale named Billy sent Santa Claus an emergency letter, bitching and moaning about how his parents don't have time for him or his big sister ever since their big holiday-themed knick-knack shop became such a local sensation, and he's at the end of his rope. The parents are so fed up with Christmas in general that they don't even bother to decorate their own home until Christmas Eve, with leftover items from their store and only for the benefit of their children, so if the bigs had their way they wouldn't bother at all.
Billy also wants somebody to shoot some hoops with him, and his big sister Other Billy wants a dancing partner to help her prepare for the big holiday recital that's coming up very soon. So Santa summons his sexiest elf, a cheerful chum named Christine, and he sets her up with a new identity in Glendale, inserting her seamlessly into the local community in order for Christine to gain employment as Billy and Other Billy's new nanny, gaining the family's trust and rekindling the love of the Christmas season for their mother and father.
He kits Christine up with the full CIA-via-Hogwarts kit, including a furnished apartment, an inconspicuous wardrobe, a magic book inked in elfin blood that will answer any questions she asks it, and a purse with the power to generate whatever she may need for any given situation, including money in whatever denomination she requires. Christine has officially joined the ranks of Santa's Angels.
He also told Christine the golden rule: do not reveal your true identity or become emotionally attached to your charges. To break the golden rule means eternal banishment to the Phantom Zone, and elves hate the Phantom Zone, so that's no good. Isn't this a weird rule? This poor elf is assigned to perform a task that is almost entirely dependent upon emotions, and Santa doesn't want her to get emotional? How exactly is she supposed to teach this family the true meaning of Christmas without getting emotionally attached in some form? She's not a fucking sociopath, Santa. Of course she breaks the golden rule! I imagine they always break the golden rule! What did you expect, you fat asshole!?
Christine does a bunch of wacky shit, the kids love her, and their uncle, Big Billy, that guy who owns the local tree nursery, really loves her. This guy starts leering at poor Christine the moment he lays eyes on her, and he never, ever stops. And it's creepy, because despite all outward appearances of womanhood, Christine has the emotional maturity of a child. She's spent her entire life in a fantastical world of magic and mirth, surrounded by the trappings of childhood wonder and joy. She doesn't know jack shit about the world outside the North Pole. She's never dated anybody before. She doesn't even know what a hot dog is, so it's really bizarre watching this big goon hit on Christine every single time he bumps into her, which is as often as possible.
This is a strange story. On the surface, it's very simple. An elf uses her charms to help a family in trouble learn to love Christmas again. Easy enough. Tried and true formula. We've seen it all before. But it's the character of Christine that transforms the story into something else entirely if one bothers to scratch that surface just a little bit. This is really a coming-of-age story if you look at it the right way. Christine yearns to visit the "real world", eager to sample the everyday lives of human men and women. Santa Claus uses young Billy's family emergency as a chance to kill two birds with one stone by sending Christine, allowing her to satisfy her curiosity regarding how the other half lives, so to speak.
Thrust into this strange new world, Christine has to adapt to the alien customs of the people with whom she must live, and as she strives to change the lives of this human family, they end up changing her just as profoundly, if not more so. Exposed to this seemingly chaotic culture, she can't help but be moved by it, coming away changed in a fundamental way. In the end, she falls in love with Big Billy and his family and renounces her old life and everything she has ever known to stay with these people she has come to adore with all her heart. Wait, am I thinking of Arwen in The Lord Of The Rings? Eh, it's basically the same story, I guess.
Christine begins the story as a girl, naïve and immature, but at the end of the story she's become a woman, having learned what true love really is and making a difficult choice in order to hold on to that love. I'm not sure if elves are immortal in this movie's mythology, so I have no idea the true depths of Christine's sacrifice to become Mrs. Big Billy, but I imagine her decision was still a difficult one.
I was happy to see Summer Glau playing the elf Christine, simply because I have never before seen this woman play a character with a full emotional range before this. Granted, I haven't seen a lot of her work, but her two big roles (an emotionless robot in Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles and the emotionally damaged River Tam in Firefly) never really allowed the actress to play a simply happy character. In Help For The Holidays, she really throws herself into the role of Christine, playing the elf as a grinning bundle of exuberance and enthusiasm. She actually looks like she's having a good time in a few scenes, which is so strange to me. Strange, but nice.
I guess the movie is good. I think I enjoyed it. None of the actors were really terrible, and the story was fine. I don't think it ever really manages to come alive, despite Summer Glau's committed performance. The story mostly just unfolds in a completely predictable manner, and the love story between Christine and Big Billy is severely undercooked. These two characters only get together in the end because the script demands it, and the actors have absolutely no chemistry. Big Billy wants to jam Christine, and in the end she agrees to let him jam her on Christmas, because love. She gave up being an elf for this plank of particle board? Sure. Whatever.
You know what? Fuck this movie. I don't give a shit about Help For The Holidays. Summer Glau was cool in it, but one good performance does not equal a good movie. It's boring, predictable garbage, and I was very distracted by the presence of actor Dan Gauthier, who played Billy's father, Billy Sr. He played a smug lawyer named Brian in Saved By The Bell: Hawaiian Style, and he was in league with a wicked real estate developer who was trying to develop the land occupied by a hotel owned by Kelly Kapowski's grandfather. In the end, his nefarious scheme was foiled and Kelly punched him square in the face for good measure, so a happy ending.
But the actor was just so good at playing an oily sphincter that I can never really see him as anything else. Throughout the 1980's and 1990's, he just kept popping up in various television and film projects, and he was always a dripping creeper. The man is basically a bargain basement William Zabka, and that's all he'll ever be. In Help For The Holidays, he's mostly relegated to the background as Billy Sr., never given more than a handful of lines and treated mostly as window dressing rather than a present and caring father. He's just there, hanging out somewhere near the back in most of the movie, never making a meaningful contribution to the narrative.
So he's like a real father, I guess.
I don't care about this movie. I don't want to talk about it anymore. I've got better things to do. I think. So I'm gonna go now.
VERDICT: ZABKA
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