Will Bobby miraculously learn to love Christmas? Will he save the lake? Will he leave town? Will his family have to move?
If you're looking for an inspiring movie with a positive message, this may not be it. If you're looking for a family movie, this isn't that either. Plenty of curse words have been bleeped out in the version I saw--though Sarah looks foolish criticizing Bobby's for cursing around his sister after some tamer words are substituted. And Roxy imitates him and also gets yelled at.
This movie eventually gets where it is going but takes a long route to get there. And then runs off the road into a ditch.
Aside from one of Bobby's mysterious visits which suggest something about life after death which is not consistent with the Christian faith, this movie has little in the way of spiritual messages. The change in tone toward the end is at least inspiring but not the "miracle" some movies like this have. At least it's not predictable.
The biggest positive quality of the movie, and maybe the one reason to watch, is Siobhan Williams as Karen, who is such a great character and so nice. She sees something in Bobby that apparently we don't, because there's not much to like about Bobby. Although we are supposed to hope he gets what he wants.
Other that Williams and Will Sasso as a terrible Santa, the acting here is mostly on the level of people sitting around a table reading the script for the first time. Even the mysterious characters don't really impress. Jeremy is a particularly unlikable character until the end.
If you enjoy this movie, that's the true miracle.
