THE CHRISTMAS WISH (1998) ***1/2 Step right up, my good friends, and let me introduce you to the All-Time King of the Made-For-TV Christmas movies! (no, giggling is not appropriate, you're being introduced to royalty, dammit). Isn't it schmaltzy? Oh my heavens, yes, and wielded high and proud like virtue in a snow storm. Expect to be clubbed with it, repeatedly. Isn't the acting awful? No, it's good. And you have to love the confidence of anyone willing to trot out their new piece with Neil Patrick Harris (isn't he "Doogie Howser, M.D."? Yes, and I kind of liked Doogie) running point. And there's also Debbie Reynolds (yes, from Singin' in the Rain , and incredibly well preserved). Ok, but aren't you....erm...constantly reminded of the general production values of made-for-television...films? They're there. All the time... We all have a little bit of critic in us, but that has to be shut up here. If this film doesn't do it you have a problem that requires immediate attention. Oh, come on! Doesn't it play to the lowest common denominator, just like all the other tv movies? No. It plays to the highest aspect of our common experience. It just plays on a principal so pure that it can't go over anyone's head. It is-in some way beyond correspondence or recognition-the Ramones. In some ways it's like a great, great...the greatest ever....episode of "Murder, She Wrote." There's that mystery, and sense...but...I can't tell you what it's a meditation on or how the mystery ends...not only because some mysteries are going to always be mysteries, but also because you shouldn't be working with that kind of clues. After rearranging it all in my head so many times, this one threw me way more than the conclusion of The Crying Game. But is it art? It gets your heart strings. Anything that makes you feel like this is not only art, but art of a great and special magnitude.
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