Christmas Eve in Miller's Point

Tropic Sprockets by Ian Brockway

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Tyler Taormina (“Ham on Rye”) directs the idiosyncratic film “Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point.” While the film is definitely an acquired taste, one cannot say it is tedious. It has a frenzied weird rhythm that is difficult to define. The tone of the film is like a Robert Crumb cartoon as if handled by Martin Scorsese.

It is Christmas in Upstate New York. Lenny (Ben Shenkman) is taking his family to his folks’ house for dinner. Right away, Lenny’s young son is assaulted by a barrage of lipsticked mouths. It is like a bomb attack.

Lenny discovers to his horror that the turkey in the oven looks like a gory slab of seared flesh. It is red orange and pulpy.

Then one is introduced to Cousin Bruce (Chris Lazzaro), Uncle Ronald (Steve Alleva) and Cousin Ray (Tony Savino) who are all semi-mafia and rough around the edges. Ray is writing a novel in which he critiques his blue-collar origins.

There are various groups of kids in several rooms playing violent video games which ignite all kinds of cacophony and disorder. Garish plates of food are ubiquitous, visible at every turn. Bruce, Ronald and Ray meet with the head of the family, the heavily made-up Aunt Bev (Grege Morris), to decide how to proceed now that the two elder women of the family are declining in health.

Bruce wants to sell the house.

Meanwhile the kids in the family talk of breaking rules and have racing contests. Michelle (Francesca Scorsese) slips away from the all-night party and asks for a date with Lynn (Elsie Fisher).

There is a group of dumpster divers and a pair of silent and morose cops played by Michael Cera and Gregg Turkington.

A psychedelic Santa Claus zooms through the small town with a sense of dread and menace coupled with shots of brooding men left alone with automatic player pianos.

A cardboard cutout of a leopard clad Playboy pinup driving a Roomba hovers throughout several scenes. At such times, the film resembles a Christmas portfolio as photographed by Diane Arbus.

While the narrative action is not quite cohesive with events building and then weakening without any explanation or dramatic punch, what the film does quite well is capturing of the sadness and strange melancholy that Christmas can sometimes possess. The streets are frosty and silent. This is Spielberg town during Christmas without mogwai or gremlins. Its flannel bothered citizens are going through their yuletide motions, fretting, and frowning in grinch-like woe, not a single one of them realize that they are contained in a snow globe manufactured for purposes unknown.

Write Ian at ianfree11@yahoo.com