Does The Best Christmas Pageant Ever Live Up To Its Name?
Image Courtesy of Deadline/Lionsgate
By Dean Robbins
Dallas Jenkins, executive producer of The Chosen, has returned to the big screen for his first theatrical-only feature in seven years. In those intervening years, he has produced and released four seasons of one of the most popular adaptations of the Greatest Story Ever Told. Jenkins now turns to adapt Barbara Robinson’s beloved 1971 story, The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, to a sadly lesser effect.
The story follows Grace (Judy Greer), a mother of two, who decides to take on her town’s sacred annual tradition of holding a Christmas pageant. The barrier in her way is the Herdmans, a motley band of siblings who will stop at nothing to intimidate their peers and cause havoc. Grace’s daughter Beth (Molly Belle Wright and Lauren Graham) narrates. What follows is a sentimental tale of a town coming to understand the meaning of hospitality at Christmas. Are the Herdmans really animals or do they hold the key to unlocking the reality of human poverty at the core of the Nativity?
No viewer above the age of 10 is going to find the proceedings unpredictable. This is also an adaptation of a book, which somehow required three writers to translate, that many have already read. While predictability is expected to a degree, The Best Christmas Pageant Ever is, especially in its conclusion, surprisingly dissatisfying.
Jenkins’ work here and in The Chosen is about demythologizing Scripture. The Herdmans help the characters to realize the stark reality of Christ’s birth, of the story of two refugees with nowhere to stay and a King after them. The climax of this film is, without giving direct spoilers, about an epiphany for a town hardened to hard truths.
Jenkins and writers Platte F. Clark, Darin McDaniel, and Ryan Swanson critique here a form of pleasant Christianity, perhaps best exemplified by the film’s closest approximation of a villain who is unable to acknowledge the existence of sex. When one of the Herdmans decides to burp the fake baby Jesus during the pageant, the town is initially shocked by the idea that Jesus would have ever needed to be burped. The idea of embodied flesh, let alone suffering, is repressed. The town is completely numb. The Christmas story the town ultimately learns is not just about the greatest gift given to Man but also the suffering of life which Jesus had to carry through to Cavalry.
Since seeing the film, something has been nagging at me. It was funny, competently mounted (if maybe too broadly performed by some), and occasionally moving. Greer and all of the child actors are fantastic, carrying much of the film, especially in the comedy. The production design and costuming also does a great job of recreating the 1970s. What is the problem?
The script and possibly the book, which I have not read, turns the Herdmans into too much of a symbol. That is not to say they are not well-sketched, especially ringleader Imogene (Beatrice Schneider). Rather, The Best Christmas Pageant Ever is overly preoccupied with the conversion of the town over the transformation of the siblings, at least when it gets to the end.
One might expect that we might meet their ever-absent mother, learn the truth about their supposedly deadbeat father, or see them integrated more fully into the community. And the fact that none of this happens explicitly may be part of the point. As Jesus himself said, “the poor you will always have with you” (Mark 14:7)! All we do get is an Animal House-style credits montage that felt like the result of studio notes over the ending being unintentionally sad.
The problem, though, is that we are never even remotely tempted to dislike the Herdmans. The townspeople are always shown to be close-hearted and even comically stupid. We, the audience, know that the problem is the town. The product then is something weakly challenging and facetiously comforting.
That may seem like a tall order for an adaptation of a children’s book but there are numerous examples of it done well. Miracle on 34th Street, It’s a Wonderful Life, and even the various renditions of The Grinch or A Christmas Carol to name a few, are far more satisfying, sophisticated, and yes, accessible. For a child, The Best Christmas Pageant Ever offers no bad lesson but it does give an inferior one.
Rating: 3/5. Recommended for children and families (after the classics).
