Critic Reviews

• Elizabeth Weitzman, New York Daily News

  o matter how silly the situation, each member of the uniformly strong cast creates a nice balance between sentimental and sweet -- which is just how every holiday gathering should feel.

• Trevor Johnston, Time Out

  This is good-natured, determinedly aspirational African-American entertainment, but did it have to be quite so heavy on the clichés?

• Richard Roeper, Ebert & Roeper

  I could actually see this becoming kind of a minor perennial during the holidays.

• Geoff Pevere, Toronto Star

  If the real-life Christmas experience tends too often to be marred by the rude contradiction between expectations and reality, movies like the ultra-bland holiday family movie This Christmas are at least partly to blame.

• Jason Anderson, Globe and Mail

  An incoherent mess in which scenes of teary reconciliations sit uncomfortably next to protracted gags involving catfights, car wrecks and a big bottle of baby oil.

• Melissa Anderson, Time Out New York

  Like sock-it-to-me cake ruined by too much sugar, This Christmas is cloying empty calories.

• Jeffrey Lyles, Lyles' Movie Files

  Easily the best film of its genre since 'Soul Food' and definitely makes for a excellent holiday season treat.

• Kamal 'The Diva' Larsuel, 3BlackChicks Review

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• Andrew L. Urban, Urban Cinefile

  A happy Christmas package that more or less ignores the fact that it's a black American family story

• James Plath, Movie Metropolis

  A little too soapy for my tastes.

• Kam Williams, NewsBlaze

  Quite convincing in conveying the feeling of a real family, and in generating the requisite chemistry or antipathy as called for by their dysfunctional characters' dire circumstances.

• Prairie Miller, NewsBlaze

  A nearly XXXmas, juiced up with jazz, jive and one secretive sister's main squeeze, her vibrator hidden away in mama's bedroom drawer.

• Cynthia Fuchs, Common Sense Media

  Family holiday dramedy has some iffy content.

• Lori Hoffman, Atlantic City Weekly

  If you're looking for a film that celebrates the holiday spirit, This Christmas would be my first suggestion because it's heartfelt and not too sweet.

• Linda Cook, Quad City Times (Davenport, IA)

  Here's a family you'll want to visit for the holidays. Maybe you'll event want to stay through New Year's.

• Jim Lane, Sacramento News & Review

  ...there's a genuine feeling of a real family's real Christmas, with all its heat as well as warmth, the kind of thing that's missing from the plastic platitudes of holiday junk like Fred Claus...

• Wilson Morales, BlackFilm.com

  While formula is still the same, it's quite amusing, romantic, and a delightful holiday treat for a family to enjoy.

• Eric Lurio, Entertainment Insiders

  This is a very entertaining movie, despite all the inplausablities, and doesn't get down to the insipidness of most Holiday family outings.

• Charlotte O'Sullivan, This is London

  If you like schmaltzy, music-saturated family movies, This Christmas will set all the right bells jingling.

Read all 19 critic reviews