Director Tyler Taormina is ringing in the holiday with nostalgic coming-home story “Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point.”
The “Ham on Rye” filmmaker debuted his third feature during the Director’s Fortnight at Cannes 2024 and went on to screen it at NYFF, among other festivals. “Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point” centers on star-studded siblings who can’t wait to sneak out of the house on Christmas Eve. Per the official synopsis, the film follows a family that “gathers for what could be the last holiday in their ancestral home. As the night wears on and generational tensions arise, one of the teenagers sneaks out with her friends to claim the wintry suburb for her own.”
Michael Cera stars as a cop and also executive produces the film. Francesca Scorsese leads the feature, alongside Sawyer Spielberg, Elsie Fisher, Maria Dizzia, Gregg Turkington, Ben Shenkman, and Matilda Fleming.
IndieWire critic David Ehrlich wrote in the review that “Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point” is Ingmar Bergman-esque in its storytelling.
“Like Bergman, Taormina makes nuanced use of his nostalgia,” Ehrlich wrote. “The lived-in level of pointillistic detail here is extraordinary, which proves key to a movie that’s plotted like an advent calendar. The majority of the action takes place in the kind of house so full that it makes everyone inside feel hopelessly alone; it’s the house where the four Balsano siblings grew up together, and where one of them still lives with their widowed and aging mom (at least for the time being).”
Ehrlich continued, “‘Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point’ opens by dedicating itself ‘to the lost,’ and hoping they might ‘find their way home on Christmas Eve,’ and the film that follows is happy to act as a north star of sorts, guiding the audience back to the warmest hallows of their own memories, even if they aren’t Christian. [The family house itself] is damp with memories, and gifted cinematographer Carson Lund shoots them all so expressively that you feel like they might come to life before your eyes if you squint at the right moment.”
To note, Lund also made his own directorial debut in 2024 with fellow Cannes feature “Eephus.” Lund previously served as the director of photography on Taormina’s directorial debut “Ham on Rye.”
“Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point” filmmaker Taormina continues his coming-of-age beat after 2019 comedy “Ham on Rye.” The feature was considered by IndieWire’s Ryan Lattanzio to be a John Hughes comedy if Hughes ever directed on LSD, with Lattanzio comparing it to “Dazed and Confused” and David Lynch films.
“Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point” premieres November 8 in theaters from IFC Films. Check out the trailer below.
