{"id":7757,"date":"2024-10-30T23:06:46","date_gmt":"2024-10-31T03:06:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=7757"},"modified":"2024-10-30T23:06:46","modified_gmt":"2024-10-31T03:06:46","slug":"one-magic-christmas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/10\/30\/one-magic-christmas\/","title":{"rendered":"One Magic Christmas"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"One Magic Christmas<\/strong> (1985)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Disney\/Drama\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 89 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated G (some violence, mature themes,\u00a0 upsetting scenes, might be too much for small children)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Phillip Borsos\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Thomas Meehan\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Michael Conway Baker\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Frank Tidy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: November 22, 1985 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Starring: Mary Steenburgen, Gary Basaraba, Harry Dean Stanton, Arthur Hill, Elizabeth Harnois, Robbie Magwood, Michelle Meyrink, Elias Koteas, Wayne Robson, Jan Rubes, Sarah Polley, Graham Jarvis.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $13.6M (US)<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: **<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u2018Tis the season to be \u2026.. gloomy<\/em>? Despite the happy-sounding title, One Magic Christmas<\/strong> is far from cheery. It\u2019s depressing. After watching it, I needed a double dose of extra strength Zoloft.<\/p>\n

\u00a0To be fair, One Magic Christmas<\/strong> isn\u2019t a bad movie and while I don\u2019t want to give anything away, the movie\u2019s final moments do chase away most of the dark clouds. Still, it hardly erases the 80 minutes of misery we just endured. It carries a G rating which surprises the hell out of me since it clearly isn\u2019t something you\u2019d bring a small child to see. It doesn\u2019t contain any offensive material, but I would think that the film\u2019s mature themes and upsetting scenes should have earned it at least a PG. I don\u2019t think any mortal man will ever understand the enigma that is the MPAA.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I was a high school senior when One Magic Christmas<\/strong> hit theaters in November \u201985. I had no desire to shell out my money to see a kid\u2019s movie. I know I caught it on the Disney Channel one year, but it left no impression at all. I couldn\u2019t remember a single detail. Anyway, I revisited it this Christmas and still can\u2019t believe how dark it is. I assume the makers of this somber Christmas story were looking to do an updated, more relevant take on It\u2019s a Wonderful Life with its tale of an angel sent to help somebody without any Christmas spirit. Geez, George Bailey NEVER had it this bad!<\/p>\n

\u00a0Ginny Grainger (Steenburgen, Philadelphia) has no Christmas spirit whatsoever. She has nothing to be joyous about. Her good-natured husband Jack (Basaraba, Fried Green Tomatoes) has been out of work since June and they\u2019re about to be evicted from their home (it\u2019s company property). She has to work as a cashier at the local grocery store to make ends meet. Jack dreams of opening his own bike shop, but she says it would be a waste of the $5000 needed to start such a business. Ginny also has two young children- Abbie (Harnois, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation) and Cal (Magwood)- to think about.<\/p>\n

\u00a0It\u2019s time for some divine intervention and it arrives in the form of an angel named Gideon (Stanton, Repo Man). He initially approaches Abbie as she\u2019s about to mail a letter to Santa Claus. He suggests asking her mother to mail the letter as a way of helping her rediscover the true meaning of Christmas. He visits the child in her bedroom the next night and explains she shouldn\u2019t be afraid of the bad things that will happen the next day, Christmas Eve. He\u2019s about to put Ginny to the test in much the same way God tested Job\u2019s faith. All kinds of tragedy is about to befall the already unhappy woman, but it\u2019s meant to teach her about the true meaning of Christmas. I don\u2019t want to give away too much, but I will tell you that Gideon takes Abbie to visit Santa Claus (Rubes, Dead of Winter) at his workshop in the North Pole in the aftermath of the tragedy.<\/p>\n

\u00a0SPOILER ALERT!<\/strong> It all leads to a predictably happy ending, but did anybody really expect otherwise? One Magic Christmas<\/strong> really wants to be a Capra-esque fantasy movie right down to its small town setting (a town called Medford). Hmmm, Medford, Bedford Falls. It doesn\u2019t wholly succeed because of the overall dark tone that hangs over the entire proceedings like a big storm cloud.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The acting is actually quite good. In my opinion, Harry Dean Stanton can do no wrong. He\u2019s perfect as the angel who brings bad tidings for a good reason. Steenburgen also does a reasonably good Scrooge impression, especially in her refusal to say \u201cMerry Christmas\u201d to anybody. It\u2019s revealed that something happened to her as a child around the holiday season and she still carries it around with her. Harnois turns in a great performance as young Abbie, the shining light at the end of the tunnel. Incidentally, take a close look at the young actress who plays her best friend Molly. Does she look at all familiar? It\u2019s Sarah Polley, an actress familiar to lovers of independent cinema. Her credits include The Sweet Hereafter, Guinevere and No Such Thing as well as more mainstream fare like Go, Splice and the Dawn of the Dead remake. I did not know that she was in this until my recent viewing of it.<\/p>\n

\u00a0One Magic Christmas<\/strong> was filmed in Meaford, Ontario, Canada which is the perfect setting for this kind of movie. It really augments the bleak tone of the story. There\u2019s not that much to smile about here. Santa\u2019s workshop even comes off as a pretty bleak place. In all fairness, it isn\u2019t too bad of a movie. It\u2019s just not the movie the title would appear to suggest. It\u2019s definitely not for viewers looking for a happy Christmas flick. I would also strongly urge those who suffer from depression to choose another movie. One Magic Christmas<\/strong> is a sure cure for any kind of Christmas spirit. \u2018Tis the season to be gloomy, indeed!\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One Magic Christmas (1985)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Disney\/Drama\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 89 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated G (some violence, mature themes,\u00a0 upsetting scenes, might be too much for small children)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Phillip Borsos\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Thomas Meehan\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Michael Conway Baker\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Frank Tidy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: November 22, 1985 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Starring: Mary Steenburgen, Gary Basaraba, Harry Dean Stanton, Arthur Hill, Elizabeth Harnois, Robbie […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7846,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dramas","category-holiday-movies"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/One-Magic-Christmas-PIC.jpg?fit=987%2C554&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7757","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7757"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7757\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7848,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7757\/revisions\/7848"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}