For many people, a familiar pastime in the weeks leading up to major winter holidays is gathering with family members and watching holiday movies, be they in a theater or on television. While vaccines are more widely available now than they were last year, for some plans still remain the same this holiday season, unsure about going to movie theaters. However, this shouldn’t stop us from enjoying holiday movies with friends and family.
During the month of December, therefore, the Falls Free Press will reprise “The 12 Films of Christmas,” focusing on new holiday movies for the year 2021—a year that can still do with plenty of spirit. We will review each film, whether naughty or nice, and let you know where to watch it.
Some holidays can feel like they repeat themselves year after year, whether we follow the same exact traditions, find ourselves in the same argument with the same relative at the start of dinner, or even forget another relative at home while on vacation. While attempting to forget about the looming pandemic over our heads, the Disney Channel decided to wrap this dread of repetition, placing 12-year-old Rowena in an eternal Christmas version of Groundhog Day in their newest original movie, Christmas Again.
Despite having a list of traditions her family usually does on Christmas Day, Rowena (played by Lucifer’s Scarlett Estevez) faces the challenge of having her divorced parents both at home alone with her dad’s new wife and stepson. Given the additional family, Rowena finds herself now out of the spotlight and all her wishes ignored, causing her to act like a complete brat for most of the holiday—something that many parents have witnessed, even without adding extra members. After making a wish to herself, however, a tall and thin man claiming to be Santa appears and grants her wish—a do-over of Christmas Day. Unfortunately, the do-over doesn’t happen only one time.
Realizing that anything she does will have no repercussions each time she awakes, Rowena decides to check off her list of traditions, with or without her parents. Upon finishing her list, however—including learning to skate and win the Santas vs the Elves hockey game and learning martial arts to take down the town bully—she moves on to her parents’ relationship, attempting to rekindle her family, which has fallen apart. Many of her tactics are far from kind, while the practical jokes about being psychic run as short for viewers as they appear to run for her, having done the same trick for probably two weeks.
Like Netflix’s international Christmas comedy Just Another Christmas in 2020, Rowena must learn to appreciate what she has and how much her family, including how her new stepmom and brother, love her, which was the intent of Santa’s spell. As enchanting as this moral is, though, it is easily lost in the repetition of loud noise thrown at the screen for the first half of the film. The reasoning that her family cares about her well-being is also lost throughout, as their 12-year-old daughter disappears on Christmas Day, hopping into a limo driven by Santa and walking the streets, yet never questioning her whereabouts, searching for their child, or even asking for Rowena to take her little brother along on any one of the repeated days.
Being a Disney Channel original movie, there is no question about whether this is a movie geared toward children. Given that this is their first original Christmas movie in ten years, though, Christmas, Again shows that the channel has lost some of its creativity with made-for-TV movies, relying on the overused Groundhog Day story instead of following through with something that is indeed “original.”
Christmas, Again is available to stream on Disney+ and the DisneyNow app.
