Rating:
Christmas with the Kranks is the story of a neighborhood full of not very likable people, two of whom learn a valuable lesson about the importance of conformity.

Jamie Lee Curits and Tim Allen are Nora and Luther Krank, a pair of empty nesters who decide, on the first Christmas without their daughter at home, to take the money and effort usually spent on the trappings of the holiday and spend it on a Caribbean cruise instead. Rather than string lights on an empty house and put up a tree they won’t be there to enjoy, they plan to skip Christmas this year and enjoy themselves in warmer climes. As Luther explains to his coworkers, he’s “not angry and [won’t] yell ‘humbug’ at anyone offering holiday greetings,” he’s just not doing the Christmas thing.

Now, I love Christmas decorations and cram my house with just about every piece of red and green crap you can name. They could slap a googly-eyed snowman on a home enema kit and I’d buy eight. But that’s me. I’d never do it, but I can see that what they’re planning is a perfectly reasonable thing for Luther and Nora to want to do.

Not so their neighbors.

As soon as the Kranks make it clear that they won’t be participating in any Christmas activities, all the people on the block turn on them. It isn’t just that they give them the cold shoulder for a while, or privately think that the Kranks are a couple of weirdos; they actually go so far as to continually bully and harass the tropics-bound couple.

Nora and Luther are abused, chased and threatened, all because they won’t buy a tree or put an enormous snowman on their roof. It’s not as if the Kranks are going around stealing people’s presents and stuffing their trees one by one up the chimbley—they just aren’t decorating their own house or throwing a Christmas Eve party. Yet all their busybody friends and belligerent, pushy neighbors act as though they’ve decided to host a Manson family reunion on a playground, followed by random acts of arson.

Of course, things take a turn when the Kranks’ daughter calls, less than 24 hours before her parents are scheduled to leave on their cruise, and announces she’s coming home for Christmas after all. Now Luther and Nora are in a hectic, comic-antic-filled race to throw together a good old fashioned Christmas in a matter of hours.

This, too, I can understand. I can see why, with their daughter at home instead of a continent away, they would want to give her the kind of Christmas she expects rather than foist on her a disappointing surprise. It makes sense.

What makes no sense is the way everyone, even after the traditional holiday doings are underway, is still pissed at Luther for having the audacity to suggest skipping Christmas and, what’s more, for being disappointed that he couldn’t go on his cruise. Nora, suddenly on the side of those who had hours before been subjecting her to threats and intimidation, berates Luther for his gall in being disappointed that his “stupid, ridiculous, childish scheme” didn’t work out. Yeah, Luther, you jerk! How dare you be a little bummed that the vacation you’d been planning for six weeks and, for all we know, dreaming about for a lifetime, was canceled at the very last second? For shame!

The people on the Kranks’ street don’t come around to forgiving Luther and accepting him until he learns that he was wrong to ever dream of doing something different in the first place. That, after all, is the message of Christmas love: you’re only entitled to it if you do what everyone says. Isn’t it?

Oh, right. Of course not.

The movie is not without its isolated charms—in addition to the two leads, its cast features the likes of Dan Aykroyd, Cheech Marin and M. Emmet Walsh (and a brief appearance by Tom Poston!), and has funny moments and lines of dialogue throughout. Unfortunately, none of this helps the movie as a whole to transcend its weirdly unpleasant characters or the repugnance of its ultimate message.

The film is based on a novel by King of All Things Boring John Grisham and the screenplay was written by King of Filmmaking Style I Don’t Like Chris Columbus, so it’s not really a surprise that this movie is deeply flawed.

Skip this one. Stick with a movie that gives you a message of joyous Christmas togetherness rather than enforced Christmas sameness.

If You Hated This, You Will Also Totally Hate:

• Christmas in the Big Woods
• Home Alone 2: Lost in New York
• White Christmas
• Cricket on the Hearth
• How the Grinch Stole Christmas