It’s been three years since the the Rodriguez children last spent Christmas at their childhood home in Chicago’s Humboldt Park neighborhood.
So when brother Jesse returns from Iraq, older siblings Mauricio and Roxanna fly in for the celebration. He’s a corporate lawyer in New York City whose wife is a Wall Street pistol. She’s an actress in L.A.
Only there’s not a lot of cheer at the table once mother Anna announces that she’s leaving their father.
Class acts Alfred Molina and Elizabeth Peña star as Edy and Anna Rodriguez. John Leguizamo, Vanessa Ferlito, and Freddy Rodriguez play their adult children. Filling out the impressive ensemble are Jay Hernandez and Luis Guzmán.
On paper, “Nothing Like the Holidays” is a lot like other holiday movies. The halls aren’t decked, so much as the deck is stacked against a clan making it through the holidays without wounding themselves and each other.
Eldest Mauricio (Leguizamo) has issues with his dad, the immigrant owner of a bodega. Wife Sarah (Debra Messing) doesn’t fare much better with Anna, who makes her feel like a perpetual outsider. Jesse isn’t sure he wants to run the family biz and sister Roxanna’s agent is wrangling the parts she’d hoped for.
Directed by Alfredo de Villa, this is as much a love letter to the predominantly Puerto Rican north-side neighborhood (where producer Robert Teitel and star Rodriguez have roots) as it is to family life and strife.
Rodriguez (“Six Feet Under”) gives heft to Jesse’s heavy load. He arrives with an eye patch covering only the most visible of his wartime wounds. Melonie Diaz plays the girl he left behind.
Guzmán as cousin Johnny wears a Cheshire grin and snags the best lines. The affable electronics store owner teases machismo even as he expresses goofy tenderness for his peeps.
Beyond the movie’s seasonal familiarities of resentment and reconciliation are plenty of sweet-funny details of Latino life. Not least of which is a chance for audiences to participate in a parranda, a Puerto Rican Christmas tradition that takes place on Three Kings Day.
“Nothing Like the Holidays”
PG-13 for for thematic elements including some sexual dialogue, and brief drug references. Directed by Alfredo de Villa; written by Alison Swan and Rick Najera; photography by Scott Kevan; starring Alfred Molina, Elizabeth Peña, Freddy Rodriguez, John Leguizamo, Debra Messing, Vanessa Ferlito, Luis Guzmán, Jay Hernandez, Melonie Diaz. 99 minutes. Opens today at area theaters.
