The Christmas Box (1995)

The greatest movie ever made..!

A different way of telling a story

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

The movie is wildly uneven but lively and timely - in its own surreal way

This film for some reason I did not care for. I love the cast. I thought the story was over reaching. Recurring dreams and a discovery follow when a businessman (Richard Thomas), his wife (Annette O'Toole) and daughter move in with an elderly widow (Maureen O'Hara) who needs help. The couple see the woman in different ways. He sees her as a (Rhymes with Witch) and she sees the lady as "Sad and alone". Clues about the old woman past are nowhere to be found in the home but as a friendships grow the woman's guard comes downI can not fault the actors performances in this movie. They are excellent. Maybe I was tired when I watched this I will give it another try next year. If my mind changes so will the review. The reason why I will watch this again is because so many people like this film that I think I might of missed something.

Most Christmas stories tend to focus on the holiday aspect and minimize religious/doctrinal overtones. This film, on the other hand, is overtly religious, complete with quotations from the New Testament, such as "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son" (John 3:16), and exhortations such as "Faith, is believing in something that you can't really see", as if that's a good thing. The overt religious plug in this film can be quite off-putting for the non-religious.In contrast, 'Miracle on 34th Street' (1947), also starring Maureen O'Hara, succeeds in telling a warm and sweet Christmas story without plugging religion.By the way, you will notice that the little girl in 'The Christmas Box' is a dead ringer for Natalie Wood in 'Miracle on 34th Street'. I don't think that's accidental.

So I heard a really crazy theory about the Christmas Box... It seems that the original story was actually written by Stephen King, under the pen name Richard Paul Evans. Apparently, SK didn't want to compromise the integrity of his genre, so he adopted the pseudonym. This cherished Christmas tale is actually a whimsical, warmhearted version of The Shining. Here is the evidence: 1. Two major characters, Richard Thomas and Annette O'Toole, appear in both a past Stephen King movie (IT) and in the Christmas Box. If you don't believe me, google both of their names together.2. Both the Shining and the Christmas Box portray families with a mother, father, and a single, young child.3. These families share other similarities--both have recently relocated to a new place--one on a ski resort and the other to a ski town (where the father is setting up a ski lodge!).4. Both fathers are extremely work-oriented and this causes considerable strain on their relationships with their wives.5. Both fathers are plagued by dreams or visions that occur shortly after moving the new place. This causes tension with both couples, yet in each case, the children understand the situation on a deeper level.6. Both children form strong bonds unrelated adults who try to help them through personal crises.7. Character names in the Christmas Box have strong ties to SK's work: the 6 characters in the Christmas Box were: Richard Evans, Mary Parkin, Keri Evans, Jenna Evans, George, Stephen Hoover, and two unnamed characters. Clearly, Richard could be tied to SK through both SK's other pen name, Richard Bachman, and the fact that Richard is a recurrent character in many SK stories (The Shining contains the character Dick Halloran=RICHARD) or it could be that Richard was named after the actor that played him, much like Jack in the Shining was named after Jack Nicholson. Keri Evans is named for the title character of SK's Carrie. George has appeared as a character name in numerous SK works, including IT and Dolores Claiborne (Dolores's maiden name was St. GEORGE). Stephen Hoover could be named for SK, himself! This might just be a lot (7) coincidences, or it could be that SK, desperate to extend his creative forces far outside of the horror genre,adopted the alternate name Richard Paul Evans and began writing inspirational, family-oriented, Christmas stories.

"The Christmas Box" tries to mix together several elements--corny melodrama, supernatural thriller, redemptive tale--but to my mind succeeds best at showing what good actors can do with fairly mediocre material. In the opening shot I thought, "Wow, got to be a Hallmark TV Movie"--which it is, I learned from the closing credits. That should tell you about all you need to know. Richard Thomas is quite good as the husband/father who needs to learn a lesson, and of course Maureen O'Hara would be great reading the weekly supermarket ad, so she makes this movie was very watchable. The movie has a "secret" that the plot hinges on, but if you haven't guessed it by the first ten minutes, you're not paying attention. That removed a lot of the thrust of the story for me, but it was still enjoyable going along for the ride. It's got a lot of sentimentality, but if a movie can't be sentimental at Christmas, when can it?