Did any of you catch A Christmas Story when it aired on TNT Christmas day? I noticed that TNT had a 24-hour marathon in which they played the movie back-to-back the entire day. I was visiting my brother and his family and they had it on. I'd seen the film before but I could tell my brother really wanted to see it again so we watched it.
The movie kind of reminds me of "The Wonder Years". I guess the voice-over narration by Jean Shepherd (who adapted from his book In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash) has a lot to do with that. And the tone is very similar. "The Wonder Years" was one of the better television shows so this is not a derogatory comment.
The plot of A Christmas Story is pretty simple: nine-year-old Ralphie (played by Peter Billingsley) desperately wants a Red Ryder BB gun for Christmas, but his mom, along with his teacher, have it in for him ("You'll shoot your eye out"). Aside from that, the movie spends the rest of its time with cute and funny memories of Shepherd's childhood.
A couple of memories that really stand out are when Ralphie's friend Flick (Scotty Schwartz, who has recently turned to a career in porn)—who has been "triple-dog dared"—touches his tongue to the frozen school flagpole to see if it will stick. When it does and the school bell rings, everyone bails on poor Flick who's left flailing away until the fire department gets him unstuck. It's the kind of cheap thrill that once witnessed is never forgotten.
I also really like the scene where Ralphie is helping the Old Man (nicely played by Darin McGavin) change a tire and accidentally blurts out the "F" word when the lug nuts that he is holding are scattered. Wisely, what we hear is "fudge" (this is a family film after all), but it's made clear that the other word is the one that really came out of Ralphie's mouth. Back at home with a bar of soap in his mouth, he's asked by his mom (Melinda Dillon) where he heard that word. He's heard it, of course, from his old man, but he blurts out the first name he can think of. In a very funny moment, we hear over the phone the poor beating Ralphie's innocent little friend gets ("What'd I do?").
Other humorous memories include being chased by the school bully Scott Farcus ("He had yellow eyes") and his toadie Grover Dill. Or the time when the old man won a lamp that doubles as a statue of a shapely female leg. Or eagerly trying to decipher Little Orphan Annie's secret message with a secret decoder pin, which he has just received in the mail.
These scenes have a lot of charm; they really work.
What doesn't work so well, however, are the fantasy dream sequences. Because the rest of the movie has stayed so true to life, these scenes feel tacked on, out of place.
Another thing I didn't care for is how we don't really get a sense of where we are. A Christmas Story is suppose to be about Christmastime in Indiana in the 1940s. And while the movie does an admirable job capturing the time period, do we really get a good sense of the place? A lot of terrific movies have detailed family life in Indiana: Orson Welles' The Magnificent Ambersons, William Wyler's Friendly Persuasion and, more recently, Breaking Away and Hoosiers. Those movies gave us a fine sense of place but—with the exception of a couple references Darrin McGavin throws out early on—A Christmas Story could have taken place in just about any snowy state. I've been to Indiana and this movie doesn't really remind me of it.
While I like A Christmas Story and recommend you see it, the Scrooge in me won't give it more than three stars.
A sad footnote: the director, Bob Clark, along with his 22-year-old son, Ariel Hanrath-Clark, were killed in a Pacific Palisades traffic accident on April 4, 2007.
This vignette-laden nostalgic view of Christmastime in 1940s Indiana follows nine-year-old Ralphie who desperately wants a Red Ryder BB Gun for Christ...More at Family Video
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