White Reindeer

Despite its title and being set over the 24 days before Christmas, 2013 indie "White Reindeer" is a bizarre, dark, morose, miserable & ultimately confusing affair... that's not at all Christmassy! When her successful husband's randomly shot dead, modest, middle-class, Xmas-lover Ann Margaret Hollyman (good) finds out her perfect man had had an affair with stripper Laura Lemar-Goldsborough... and she goes quietly off the rails: partying hard with Lemar-Goldsborough & pals; shoplifting; binge shopping online; orgying with neighbours; etc. Writer / director Zach Clark appears to have aimed for an off-beat depiction of grief, but it's just all rather pointless. Flush it.

This is not a comedy. This is not a dark comedy. This is not a black comedy. This is not a drama, a dramedy or anything. This is a vacuum bubble. A nothing, a blank wall. This is the feel nothing movie of the year not good or bad or tragic. A null. A women who has a tragedy in her life before Christmas. She jumps right over grief to catatonia. She discovers the people in her life all have secret lives and discovers she doesn't have a life or any existence of her own. She has zero response to everything. The only excitement in her life is throwing up. I guess that's something. Anyway there's sex and drugs and shoplifting, strippers, swingers and people who are really really ugly naked. And none of it registers or matters in the least.

I can't really add much more criticism than to say "me too" to the 1-star reviews already posted. That said, I'll go on to note that this movie squandered a heluva a good storyline. And, I'm assuming that the storyline is the sole reason for the positive critical reviews on rotten tomatoes. The story involves the tragedies that befall ordinary folk during celebratory seasons, and those stories are a fact of life. Sadly the debilitating depression brought on by the double whammy of a tragedy during Chrismastime isn't represented in this movie in a way that feels interesting or genuine. I kept wanting for something visceral to happen - but nothing ever does. Or at least she could have had realistic or colorful co-workers instead of the cardboard cutouts created here. I remember how the movie "Doubt" took a small thing and through amazing dialog had the audience on the edge of their seats. Well, the dialog is so sparse in uninteresting in this movie you'll be looking for a Serta Sleeper mattress.

I do like dark/bleak comedies, but this just takes too long and does not have enough to tell. Don't get it twisted, this is not a family picture nor your typical Christmas movie, which I all knew going in and you should too. The story does not just happen to be around Christmas time though, it's supposed to be that way, to show us what happens behind close doors and the other side of Christmas (see also Neighbors and their "way" of celebrating).

The humor is not lost to me, but the message is not sufficient enough to warrant the running time. There are a lot of long pauses that are supposed to enhance the "message", but only succeed in stopping the movie in its tracks. The performances are good enough, but the characters do not have much to say other than the central message. A few nice set pieces (see Neighbors) are not enough to help elevate this. There are worse movies, but this misses out on a couple of things too

The obscene and mundane nature of this film will throw some people off, but dark comedies aren't suppose to avoid disturbances, drabness, or oddity. The Director, Zach Clark, manages to convey great emotion in everyday occurrences, sometimes without dialogue, which is quite a feat. He does it in a different type of Christmas movie that is centered around a tragedy, but which has a humorous touch that keeps it entertaining, and that conveys ideas with a real heart. Though Anna Margaret Hollyman isn't well-known, she does a great job anchoring the film as a character who desperately wants it to feel like Christmas despite being overcome with grief. If you enjoy dark humor and don't need a movie to lecture you, or be overly puritanical, I highly recommend White Reindeer. It is a low-budget classic.