今年圣诞节 This Christmas review by Claudia Puig

This Christmas is enjoyable enough. Though like some holiday fare, it doesn't quite stay with you.
There is a familiar quality to the multi-generational family holiday homecoming that nicely blends drama and comedy. It's a cut above the standard heartwarming fare that fills theaters this time of year and substantially better than some of the misbegotten comedies such as Fred Claus or some Christmas movies of recent years.

A few performances, notably those of Delroy Lindo, Loretta Devine and Regina King, stand out.

Devine plays the matriarch of the Whitfield family, whose members have come together over the holidays for the first time in four years.

Lindo is her gentleman friend, and King is Lisa, one of her adult daughters, a married mother of young children. Lisa's sister Kelli (Sharon Leal) is a tough businesswoman who finds love with an unexpected but determined suitor (Mekhi Phifer), and Mel (Lauren London) is a college student bringing her boyfriend (Keith Robinson) home for the first time.

Claude (Columbus Short) is a Marine with a secret he is hiding from his family. Quentin (Idris Elba) is a traveling musician who plays the role of the prodigal son.

Each of her grown children has taken a different path in life. Secrets are kept and revealed, issues aired and dissected, and, ultimately, fences are mended. There is a formulaic quality to some of the plot, but an overall buoyant mood prevails.

There also is a moving rendition of O Holy Night and a couple of family dance segments that may make audiences want to join in.

But the movie's highlight is an impressive musical interlude by the talented Chris Brown doing an inspired version of Try a Little Tenderness. It's an irresistible musical performance plunked down in the middle of the story, and you find yourself hankering for an encore.

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