Parents' Guide to A New York Christmas Wedding

A Christmas Wedding in New York is all over the place, making so many arguments regarding so many issues that it's difficult to identify the many messages and appreciate them all. One argument is made fairly late in the action by a priest as he quotes a passage from Corinthians that denounces "fornicators, adulterers, male prostitutes, sodomites…" The priest calls it "one of the most damning, hurtful and misused Christian passages in the Bible" and sees a direct correlation between those words and "the rise of gay Catholic suicides."

Writer-director Otoja Abit nevertheless conveys a fondness for religious traditions at the same time he sees the church's position as hypocritical in its supposed acceptance of gay people and its simultaneous refusal to allow them to marry in the church. More subtle value judgments are communicated here as well. This movie suggests it's better to be with the gay, middle-class love of your life than with your super-rich hetero boyfriend and his pretentious and bossy parents. All of this contemporary social commentary is mixed with a fantasy about a woman still yearning for her dead first love, and the guardian angel who's helping her go back twenty years and live happily ever after with people who are long gone. Likable performers and the movie's general emphasis on elevating love and inclusion above all else help make this palatable.