(Slight Spoilers Ahoy!)
To be fair up front, Nativity! seems to hit all the buttons in being an inoffensive, emotional Christmas movie, filled with lots of children being themselves rather than acting at being movie kids. It has appealing characters (with at least one big exception), a plot the ankle biters can follow, no product placement (unless you count Coventry), and songs that they can sing along with. And yes, the ending is warm and fuzzy.
Oh, but how annoying for me nevertheless! Freeman's character is a failed actor/director/producer (whatever he's supposed to be) who leaves entertainment and goes into teaching primary school kids. Am I supposed to pity him? Apparently so. A hell of a lot of people want to be teachers in the first place, a thankless job (one my wife does) and not to be seen as something you fall back on.
But Freeman lies, and thanks to his idiot classroom assistant (more on him in a moment), everything snowballs, and though he has many opportunities to stop it by telling the truth (or at least telling another lie to stop it), he doesn't.
The head teacher is a self-serving b**** out for personal recognition rather than for the children, a trait shared by many real-life head teachers out there (admittedly, this day and age requires that head teachers act more like CEOs than teachers, despite the word in their job title), and though she berates Freeman for taking away two of their children to America without proper release forms, she never bothered checking herself before they left (and the parents themselves never show up to wonder what happened to their kids, or even if they used passports or just went with Hollywood rules that say passports are only mentioned if integral to the plot) and then she cancels the play. But then later we see her crying because now she knows the truth and Hollywood isn't gonna come and give her some acclaim - and again I'm wondering at what point I'm supposed to be feeling sorry for her.
But the absolute worst character was classroom assistant Mr Poppy, who plays the movie trope of Idiot With a Heart of Gold. Oh look at him, the child-like man who bonds with the kids - and is just as irresponsible as they are. He overhears Freeman's lies and spreads them to all and sundry, he takes the kids on trips without clearing it first with anyone, he forges permission slips to let Freeman take two of the kids to America and ends up getting him fired, and in the climax, risks several children having them perform stunts that in real life would give Health and Safety people strokes.
Oh, but he has a kind, innocent heart! You know what, **** that. A kind, innocent heart and a penny is just about worth a penny. Even Freeman's character points out to Poppy that any idiot can be a friend to the kids, and Poppy has proved to be just that idiot. The only thing this movie does right is by clearing up how such a dimwit can get a position in a school - by being a relative of the head teacher, because nepotism is another fact of life with many of today's primary schools. Even my wife has admitted that, though she loved his character, she would quit her job before having him as a real classroom assistant. And what does this tell the kids watching it, and maybe expecting their classroom assistants to act like that instead of, you know, doing their jobs and supporting the teacher, not being the kids' friend?
Okay, I get it, the movie is made for the younger crowd, and that's somehow supposed to excuse its faults. But strangely enough, I've found that you can make a decent movie and make it for the whole family, but that fact somehow seems to escape the notice of many filmmakers.
To be fair up front, Nativity! seems to hit all the buttons in being an inoffensive, emotional Christmas movie, filled with lots of children being themselves rather than acting at being movie kids. It has appealing characters (with at least one big exception), a plot the ankle biters can follow, no product placement (unless you count Coventry), and songs that they can sing along with. And yes, the ending is warm and fuzzy.
Oh, but how annoying for me nevertheless! Freeman's character is a failed actor/director/producer (whatever he's supposed to be) who leaves entertainment and goes into teaching primary school kids. Am I supposed to pity him? Apparently so. A hell of a lot of people want to be teachers in the first place, a thankless job (one my wife does) and not to be seen as something you fall back on.
But Freeman lies, and thanks to his idiot classroom assistant (more on him in a moment), everything snowballs, and though he has many opportunities to stop it by telling the truth (or at least telling another lie to stop it), he doesn't.
The head teacher is a self-serving b**** out for personal recognition rather than for the children, a trait shared by many real-life head teachers out there (admittedly, this day and age requires that head teachers act more like CEOs than teachers, despite the word in their job title), and though she berates Freeman for taking away two of their children to America without proper release forms, she never bothered checking herself before they left (and the parents themselves never show up to wonder what happened to their kids, or even if they used passports or just went with Hollywood rules that say passports are only mentioned if integral to the plot) and then she cancels the play. But then later we see her crying because now she knows the truth and Hollywood isn't gonna come and give her some acclaim - and again I'm wondering at what point I'm supposed to be feeling sorry for her.
But the absolute worst character was classroom assistant Mr Poppy, who plays the movie trope of Idiot With a Heart of Gold. Oh look at him, the child-like man who bonds with the kids - and is just as irresponsible as they are. He overhears Freeman's lies and spreads them to all and sundry, he takes the kids on trips without clearing it first with anyone, he forges permission slips to let Freeman take two of the kids to America and ends up getting him fired, and in the climax, risks several children having them perform stunts that in real life would give Health and Safety people strokes.
Oh, but he has a kind, innocent heart! You know what, **** that. A kind, innocent heart and a penny is just about worth a penny. Even Freeman's character points out to Poppy that any idiot can be a friend to the kids, and Poppy has proved to be just that idiot. The only thing this movie does right is by clearing up how such a dimwit can get a position in a school - by being a relative of the head teacher, because nepotism is another fact of life with many of today's primary schools. Even my wife has admitted that, though she loved his character, she would quit her job before having him as a real classroom assistant. And what does this tell the kids watching it, and maybe expecting their classroom assistants to act like that instead of, you know, doing their jobs and supporting the teacher, not being the kids' friend?
Okay, I get it, the movie is made for the younger crowd, and that's somehow supposed to excuse its faults. But strangely enough, I've found that you can make a decent movie and make it for the whole family, but that fact somehow seems to escape the notice of many filmmakers.