Rotten Tomatoes score: 21%
Do you remember the year 1998? Take a moment to think back. Larry Page and Sergey Brin founded Google; the Second Congo War began in August; Chavez was elected and Clinton was impeached. But the most powerful person in the world in 1998 was, without a doubt, Jonathan Taylor Weiss.
Weiss, better known by his stage name Jonathan Taylor Thomas ("JTT"), experienced a meteoric rise to prominence as the breakout heartthrob cast member of Home Improvement. At the time, he commanded a veritable army of fans, mostly 12-year-old girls, and he enjoyed the staunch support of the Fourth Estate through that Grey Lady of journalism Tiger Beat. (Or was it Teen Beat? Whichever.)
But unlike his co-star Tim Allen, who had also rocketed to short-lived superstardom in the 90s, the great JTW was not to be a Holiday icon. No, I'll Be Home for Christmas is no The Santa Clause. It's not even The Escape Clause (we'll get to that one). Indeed, this entry would have been relegated to a mere footnote in film history had Netflix not seen fit to remind me of it last month.
We meet JTW at Palisades College, a fictional institution in a fictional version of Los Angeles in which Christmas occurs during late spring. JTW's high school sweetheart and current girlfriend Allie (Jessica Biel) is going home for Christmas, and she urges him to do the same. But our dear rolling stone will have none of it—he'd rather while away his holidays lounging on the beach at Cabo or scamming the vain, heartless Eddie and his frat boy pals out of their tuition money. Besides, his widowed dad is remarried, and JTW doesn't care for his stepmother.
(All right, I'm going to stop calling him JTW. The character's name is Jake.)
The only thing that is able to change Jake's mind is his dad's promise to give him his beloved classic Porsche as a special Christmas gift, but only if the boy makes it to Christmas Eve dinner at 6:00 sharp. No discussion is had of Jake's travel arrangements, and the rest of the movie makes it clear that Dad neither knows nor cares how Jake is transporting himself. One might have imagined that someone would offer him a ride home from the airport, but no. Everybody plans to sit quietly until 6 pm on December 24, waiting to see if Jake will arrive.
Unfortunately for Jake, the frat boys are none too pleased with the aforesaid scam, so they lock Jake's dweeby partner in crime in his locker and ditch Jake in the desert, unconscious (presumably from a savage off-screen beating), wearing a Santa suit, surrounded by buzzards. But if you think this act of attempted murder will slow down our frosted-haired hero, you've got another think coming.
Instead, Jake spends the next hour enduring an astoundingly contrived gantlet of indignities before he arrives back home. He bums a ride from some old ladies on their way to a Tom Jones concert. He rides shotgun with a two-bit crook and has to fast-talk his way out of an arrest by delivering the thief's loot to a children's hospital. (The hospital will be delighted when it discovers the origin of these gifts.) For absolutely no reason, the cop who nearly busted him then asks Jake to help him reconcile with his estranged wife. Jake does this in exchange for a bus ticket to New York.
Unfortunately, Jake then discovers that Allie and Eddie are road-tripping to New York on the same route, so he diverts the bus to thwart what he suspects is an act of cuckoldry. Of course, Allie in fact has no interest in Eddie and only accepted his carpool offer out of desperation, so she gives Jake a dressing-down and takes his place on the bus. (Apparently the drivers for this busing company have the authority to eject ne'er-do-wells and give their seats to decent people.)
At this point, we realize that Jake has evidently been riding on a supersonic bus, because he has made it from Southern California to Wisconsin in a day and a half. All he has to do is win a conveniently-timed 5k race against conveniently out-of-shape competitors, and he'll receive the $1000 he needs to travel to the Madison airport, book a flight, clear security, board the flight, fly to JFK, exit the airport, call a cab, drive 25 miles to Larchmont, and join his family for dinner, in one afternoon.
But instead, he has a totally unmotivated change of heart and gives the money away to charity. He still accomplishes the rest of the plan, though, but he has to ride in a dog crate in the cargo hold of a commuter plane. (This is after a pointless sequence where his sister buys him a ticket, but he can't pick it up because he's lost his ID.) So in the end, he reaches home, but conspicuously turns down the Porsche, so we know he's learned a Valuable Lesson, even though nothing that has occurred could plausibly have taught him such a lesson.
After reading a few reviews of this movie, I feel guilty writing this one, like I'm picking on a little kid in school. But what else can I say?
Several critics compared the movie unfavorably to Pleasantville and said it was anachronistically sappy. I guess I can see that, but the 15 intervening years have also allowed me to see that this thing reeks of the late 90s. Just look at JTW's hair, or for that matter, skip to the 30-minute mark and listen to Jessica Biel sing along to "Doctor Jones." Fish don't know they're wet, so I guess critics in 1998 didn't realize they were watching an unholy time capsule of a movie.
But I'm done ragging on the movie. It wasn't so bad, really. I honestly would recommend it, but only if you have a high tolerance for corny family movies and the year 1998.
TRUE MEANING OF CHRISTMAS:
1. It's wrong for college students not to spend time with their families.
Plus ça change.
2. You'll never get that "Doctor Jones" song out of your head.
Good thing it's such a festive holiday tune. Thank God they didn't pick "Cotton Eye Joe."
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