This Christmas - PG-13

Family holiday dramedy has some iffy content.

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Rating: PG-13 for comic sexual content and some violence. Studio: Screen Gems Directed By: Preston A. Whitmore II Cast: Delroy Lindo, Regina King, Chris Brown Running Time: 117 minutes Release Date: 11/21/2007 Genre: Drama

Common Sense Note

Parents need to know that this holiday-themed dramedy includes some mild jokes about sex and drinking, as well as some questionable behavior. The movie's focus is on the bonds among adult siblings and their long-suffering, sometimes narrow-minded mother. Sexual content includes kissing, staying overnight with a new boyfriend, flirting, and cheating. On the violence side, thugs beat up a man who owes them money, and guns are used threateningly in a few scenes. Language includes "s--t," "damn," and "hell." One character smokes several times; characters also drink in bars and during family conflicts.

Families can talk about how movies tend to portray family holiday gatherings. Do you think the frequent tension and conflict (even when played for laughs) is realistic? What are holiday celebrations like in your family? Why do you think the characters in the movie so often resort to lying and keeping secrets? Does it help solve any of their problems?

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Common Sense Review

Reviewed By: Cynthia Fuchs

A typical domestic dramedy full of trivial arguments and predictable reconciliations, THIS CHRISTMAS offers one exceptional moment: Chris Brown performing "Try a Little Tenderness." The scene is set in a club around the corner from the house where he lives with his mother, Ma' Dere (Loretta Devine). His older siblings have assembled, chatting, bickering, and flirting with potential partners. But as soon as "Baby" steps on stage, murmuring that he's nervous because it's his "first time," it hardly matters what anyone else is doing. He begins to sing, and he's brilliant.

He also brings Preston Whitmore's movie to a halt. Some awkward, unnecessary cuts to reaction shots emphasize that Michael's brothers and sisters are astonished -- especially his oldest brother, Quentin (Idris Elba), a jazz saxophonist who's just come home after four years' absence. The singing is also a minor plot point -- Michael has kept it secret to avoid a run-in with Ma' Dere, who still mourns her musician husband's long-ago departure -- but it's only a drop in the film's large, conventional bucket full of familial deceits and resentments.

Chief among these is the longstanding competition between eldest daughter Lisa (Regina King) -- who's married to the plainly dishonest Malcolm (Laz Alonso) -- and Kelli (Sharon Leal), a jet-setting model/actress who has a vibrator in lieu of a boyfriend. The film grants both sisters chances to help each other: Lisa encourages Kelli's brand-new relationship with local charmer Gerald (Mekhi Phifer), and Kelli supports Lisa during her inevitable confrontation with her cheatin' man (his scheme to make money off of Ma' Dere's dry cleaning business is only the start of his maliciousness).

At the same time, Quentin is wrestling with his own anger at Ma' Dere, projected onto her longtime boyfriend, Joe (Delroy Lindo), a completely decent guy who goes so far as to pretend he's not living in the house so Quentin won't get upset. Meanwhile, perpetual undergraduate Mel (Lauren London) brings home a new boyfriend and brother Claude (Columbus Short), a Marine, is hiding his own surprise. He's as afraid to tell Ma' Dere about his relationship with a white woman as Michael is to spill the beans about his singing.

All of this suggests that the kids have grown up trying to protect their mother from surprises or even vaguely bad news. While the film makes their familial grappling look mostly comic, occasional tensions erupt into full-on fights (Lisa and Kelli go at it on the front lawn, and Lisa finds a particularly physical way to punish Malcolm). Broad and farcical, such moments are less engaging than the film's subtler moments, and mostly just repeat the home-for-the-holidays movie formula. This formula is exactly why Brown's non-Christmas ballad song, so soulful and sweet, feels so refreshing.

Fans might enjoy other holiday-oriented dramedies, like The Preacher's Wife, Last Holiday and Home for the Holidays. Or try movies with the same stars -- like Elba in Tyler Perry's Daddy's Little Girls, Phifer in Soul Food, or Lindo in Spike Lee's underseen Crooklyn.

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Content		CS	adults	kids
Content
Sexual Content Lisa wears just bra and panties, hoping to seduce her husband. Occasional cleavage displays. Some romantic kissing between couples. Kelli has a vibrator, which her mother acknowledges. Mel and boyfriend hide in closet to kiss and initiate sex (nothing explicit). At a bar, Q and Claude discuss "hotties." After flirting at a bar, Kelli goes home with Gerald and sneaks home the next morning. Talk of protection, jokes revolving around the word "ho." Some secret relationships and cheating. Husband shown in hotel room with lover (nothing explicit; she kisses him). Malcolm emerges from shower with towel. Vaguely sexy/comic dancing under end credits.
Violence Mild, comic, and insinuated. Quentin is chased by two thugs and jumps off a fire escape. At a bar, Claude pulls out a gun to threaten a bully, causing a panic; he's later arrested by military police. Thugs catch up with Q and punch him, hard, repeatedly. Lisa and Kelli fight in the rain (pushing and hitting). Woman drives her cheating husband's car off a waterway. Joe threatens thugs with a gun; they back off. Wife hits cheating husband with a belt (he slips on an oil-covered floor; the scene seems comic, but it's tense, too).
Language Language includes occasional uses of "s--t," "damn," "hell," "ass," "bitch slap," and "son of a bitch."
Message
	Social Behavior Family tensions related to ongoing competition and resentments; cheating husband; people scheme to gain access to family property; minor and major lies, arguments, and disloyalties; eventual reconciliations.
	Commercialism No kid-oriented fare, but lots of products, both named and pictured: Nikon camera, Rolls Royce, Cadillac Escalade, BMW, Canada Dry ginger ale, Rolling Rock beer, Harley Davidson, Jeep Cherokee, Staples Center.
	Drug/Alcohol/Tobacco Quentin smokes cigarettes in several scenes; various characters drink (wine, beer, liquor) in several scenes, both at bars and at home. A couple of comic conversations about drinking.