Tyler Taormina made a splash in 2019 with Ham on Rye, a fantastic coming-of-age sci-fi that traded in decades of nostalgia, jumbling markers from the hoverboards of the 1980s movieverse to the stars of early noughties teen shows.
Last May, the American auteur had two films in the Directors’ Fortnight section of the Cannes film festival: the baseball drama Eephus, which he co-produced, and Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point, which he co-wrote and directed.
A freewheeling and phantasmagorical meditation on Christmas and related movie tropes, this Altmanesque seasonal comedy offers a wistful riot of chatter and foods: separated red and green M&Ms, cherry affogato and salami sticks.
It’s the early 2000s and, with a curtsy to the chaos of Home Alone, an extended Italian-American family descends upon their grandma’s Long Island home for Christmas festivities. Siblings bicker about the care of their ageing mother Antonia (Mary Reistetter) and the possible sale of the house.
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Among a rabble of cousins and siblings, adults sing by the piano and watch home movies, older teens play first-person shooter games and younger bystanders pretend to know the meaning of “flank”.
In scenes reminiscent of Richard Linklater’s Dazed and Confused, a posse of teens eventually sneaks away for romantic adventures in parked cars. Michelle (Francesca Scorsese, daughter of Martin and TikTok superstar) flirts with a waitress (Elsie Fisher from Eighth Grade).
Another American movie scion, Sawyer Spielberg, son of Steven, forms part of a triumvirate of stoner losers. He imagines his high school reunion with a Dickensian variation: “God bless them, everyone.”
A trippy, ideologically cracked sequence that sees the entire clan spill out onto the street to marvel at branded trucks carrying a certain soft drink verges on David Lynch-brand Americana.
Overlapping stories bring us to an oblique lovelorn conversation between roadside cops winningly played by Michael Cera and Gregg Turkington. There are cruising parallels with American contemporaries the Ross Brothers and Halina Reijn, but this daisy chain has an earnest, festive charm unlike any other. It’s a vibe.
Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point is on limited release from November 15th
