The Fitzgerald Family Christmas (2012, Edward Burns)

The Fitzgerald Family Christmas is going to be frustrating to talk about. Burns contrives a melodrama and then proceeds to remove all the melodramatic fluff. During the scenes when–after the first act concludes–more of these melodramatic events occur, there’s a brief recognition of what he’s achieved. At some point in the second act, after three more events Burns should not be able to get away with occur, I wondered if he was just testing himself. He assembles the finest ensemble cast in years–costarring alongside them. They (and the filmmakers) bring Fitzgerald to a whole new level.

At one point, when Burns (as an actor) is listening to Heather Burns speak, I found it hard to believe was able to contain his zeal at giving her such good dialogue and directing such a good performance. There are a couple other similar scenes with Burns and his costars, but the one with Heather Burns stands out. She might give the film’s best performance. She’s certainly in the top three… or top four.

Fitzgerald concerns a large family in the two days before Christmas. I didn’t gauge the time on how Burns split the days in the run time, though they seem about equal. Burns is the oldest son–he lives with mother Anita Gillette (in one of the other top four performances), who turns seventy the day the film opens. Heather Burns is one of the daughters; in the female children category there are also Marsha Dietlein, Caitlin Fitzgerald (another top four) and Kerry Bishé. The other two male children are Michael McGlone and Tom Guiry (last top four). After the top four, in case you’re wondering, are “the next two,” being Bishé and McGlone.

And Ed Lauter is the absentee father. He’s great too. Everyone’s great. It’s just how to measure them–like I said, frustrating to talk about. It’s hard to think of an ensemble where everyone has such perfect parts. Not “good” or “great” perfect, but actual perfect–they will never be this good in anything again.

Burns himself almost steps back into his own story arc with Connie Britton. He also gives McGlone and Bishé a little story arc, which Burn then uses to imply history about the family without relying on artificial exposition. He does, of course, have exposition, but he’s able to layer it in organically.

I’ve got to get to the technical aspects–I decided on the first sentence Fitzgerald needs a double-length response. P.T. Walkley’s score, which adapts Christmas standards, helps in Burns’s draining of the melodrama. The songs imply the holiday and the confusion behind it for the characters; it’s essential.

Burns shoots Fitzgerald Panavision aspect; it’s another angering feature. Some of the shots are so good, so precise and exact in how Burns positions the characters together, they made me mad. His composition-William Rexar’s photography is key–is unbelievably meticulous as to how he presents the characters interacting with one another.

The Fitzgerald Family Christmas is wondrous.

The Groomsmen (2006, Edward Burns)

The Groomsmen looks wrong. The film doesn’t have any grain and the lighting suggests it’s shot on some kind of DV (it isn’t). Everything is very controlled–a bright outdoor scene doesn’t seem bright in Groomsmen, it seems like the color has been toned down so as not to offend. It looks like a Mentos commercial really, and that defect doesn’t make any sense. Burns has made films for quite a while now. There’s no excuse. Unless the DVD transfer is just a disaster or something.

It doesn’t help Burns coasts through The Groomsmen in every way possible. I kept waiting for some great shots, but there was literally only one. A very steady Steadicam tracking shot. Every other shot in the film was generic and felt like Burns wasn’t even paying attention when he was setting it up. The film’s got a gradual build-up, so I gave him some benefit of the doubt–and then tracking shot reassured me–but then nothing else ever appeared. But he’s also disconnected with the picture as a writer and actor as well.

The Groomsmen is chock full of characters–Burns, brother Donal Logue, cousin Jay Mohr and friends Matthew Lillard and John Leguizamo. All of them have a subplot going on except Lillard, who owns the bar and is happily married with a couple kids. I assume his subplot is supposed to be the missed high school glory days, but it really isn’t. Lillard’s character is too well-adjusted. Lillard might give the film’s best performance, it’s either him or Logue. While Lillard was flawless, I never thought Logue would be capable of giving such a nuanced, haunted performance.

Burns is able–as a writer–to not give himself many scenes as an actor and he doesn’t. His subplot, ostensibly the main plot, is boring. His absence is almost immediate, which made me think he was going to use the time to concentrate on the film’s direction. He doesn’t. The direction shows a shocking lack of attention and there’s certainly nothing innovative.

There is some funny stuff in the script, but it feels undercooked, like Burns produced an unfinished draft. Too many characters to follow, some conversations too loose, the sort of things he should have cleared up. Mohr’s essentially playing an idiot–he’s the comic relief–and it’s fine. Leguizamo’s good. Burns is clearly an acting piker here, but Heather Burns (I don’t think she’s a relation) is good as Logue’s wife. Brittany Murphy, as Burns’s fiancée, is fine. He keeps the women, with one exception, at home and it hurts the film. The characters start in situations Burns can never make reasonable. They just seem silly.

But the main, male characters don’t even go through interesting arcs. Nothing in the running time should bring any eureka moments for these guys, it’s all stuff they could have hashed out in the first five minutes. Burns feels like he’s got a collection of notecards with pat movie psychoses and he’s assigning them one by one. It’s a shame, since he certainly didn’t start out this way.

The Groomsmen isn’t terrible by any means, but it’s exceptionally disappointing.