Yuletide miracles abound in The Best Christmas Pageant Ever (now streaming on Starz): It chronicles the unexpected moral turnaround of a pack of unruly children, first chronicled in Barbara Robinsonâs beloved 1972 novel. It was a modest under-the-radar hit during the 2024 holiday season, word-of-mouth leading it to a tidy $40 million in ticket sales. And itâs a faith-based movie that asserts its message without being preachy â perhaps its most remarkable achievement. The Chosen creator Dallas Jenkins directs this genuinely funny heartwarmer thatâs likely to win you over even if youâre not keen on its brand of sneaky evangelism. Like I said, miracles!
THE BEST CHRISTMAS PAGEANT EVER: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
The Gist: Itâs blatantly obvious the Herdmans are a bunch of godless heathens. Thereâs six of them ranging in age from about five to 13 or 14, Iâd estimate. Theyâre a little grubby and they lie and cheat and steal and bully the other kids and smoke cigars and cuss out teachers. âTheyâre all the same except for the different black-and-blue marks where they had clonked each other,â narrates Beth Bradley. The movie is Bethâs reminiscence of her childhood; her voice belongs to Lauren Graham, but her younger self is played by Molly Belle Wright. Beth would be fine if the Herdmans went away forever, and sheâs not at all alone in that sentiment. Everyone in Emmanuel â a city in an unnamed state where it snows, so Iâm gonna guess Wisconsin, maybe Pennsylvania â considers the Herdmans a six-headed nuisance, led by the hard-as-nails Imogene (Beatrice Schneider), who forces Beth to hand over her necklace or else, and or else ainât happening, so say goodbye to your favorite locket, kid. Weâve got ourselves a true reign of terror here.
Judging by the wooden console TV in the Bradley living room and the station wagon out front, Iâm gonna guess itâs about 1983. Itâs Christmastime, when the whole town gathers in the church for The Emmanuel Annual, the pageant where schoolkids act out the nativity scene. Beth bemoans how prissy little Alice Wendelken (Lorelei Olivia Mote) always plays Mary and the play is always the same thing every year, which is precisely the type of bemoaning thatâs heavy with foreshadowing, because the pageant is about to face some serious hardship. See, the olâ battleaxe who usually directs it falls and breaks both legs, and Bethâs mom, Grace (Judy Greer) volunteers to take the helm. This puts Grace smack in the crosshairs of the judgy moms who want the pageant to strictly adhere to tradition, and carry superiority complexes that are surely masking deep insecurities, so weâll see who gets the last laugh when itâs time to pay therapy bills and gauge things like inner peace and happiness, right? Right.
And so, Emmanuelâs social hierarchy is as follows: The Herdmans are the Slobs, the Wendelkens and their ilk are the Snobs, and the Bradleys are the Moderates. What with one thing and another, the Herdmans, who never go to church, catch wind that thereâs free food there (note: there really isnât). And before you know it, these ruffians muscle their way into the pageant. Imogene volunteers to play Mary, and her siblings gobble up all the other key roles,j and nobody wants to counter them for fear of being pounded. So Grace is in a bit of a pickle here â one that goes from sour to sweet when she realizes the Herdmans have absentee parents and appear to be economically disadvantaged. And the Herdmans have never even heard the story of Christmas, with the star and the stable and the virgin and the baby and the wise men and the stupidass myrrh, and all that. Theyâre enraptured by it, thirsty for a little something that everyone else in town seems to take for granted. The Snobs, of course, donât care about this, and just want these ruffians out of their precious pageant. But Grace? She lends the Herdmans a little something that they never seem to have experienced before â something in her name, perhaps.
What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Best Christmas Pageant is essentially A Christmas Story (voiceover-nostalgia story structure, meticulous eye for period detail) but with pews and bibles instead of Ovaltine and sexy leg lamps.Â
Performance Worth Watching: The movie wouldnât work without a surprisingly soulful performance by Schneider, who tells us the story of the Herdmansâ hardship without saying a word.
Memorable Dialogue: Upon learning that the baby Jesus was swaddled in cloth, Imogen poses some pragmatic questions: âThey tied him up and put him in a box? Where was child welfare?â
Sex and Skin: None.
Our Take: Set aside the not-so-sub subtext about converting the heathens to the Greatest Religion In The World, and itâs remarkably easy to be charmed by The Best Christmas Pageant Ever. Jenkins bullseyes the time period (note how the Bradley family doesnât bother to wear seatbelts in the station wagon) and shows considerable acumen in casting and directing young actors. More importantly, he nurtures a tone thatâs illustrative instead of preachy, forgoing the heavy-handed moralizing of many faith-based films. He finds universal themes amidst the specificity of Christianity, and generates laughter and pathos in equal measure. Itâs a tightrope walk that he pulls off remarkably well.
Wright and Greer share a few mother-daughter moments that give the story depth and color; itâs absolutely heartwarming to see Beth and Grace grow closer as they learn more about what it means to be truly nonjudgmental, and embrace the Christian spirit of emotional generosity and acceptance. Itâs pretty clear that the Snobs arenât mirroring Jesusâ ideologies with their off-the-cuff rejection â or in the parlance of our time, âotheringâ â of the Herdmans. Itâs also pretty clear that the Herdmans relate to the hardship that Mary, Joseph and Jesus endured, a poignancy thatâs not stated outright, but bubbles out of the characterizations and performances. And despite the overarching story of conversion, thereâs nuance to it, where both sides of the Herdmans-vs.-Emmanuel conflict quietly realize that softening their tenor opens the door to empathy and mutual understanding.
Our Call: This is a fun, meaningful, warm and hopeful movie, and I can see some of us integrating it into the holiday-movie rotation every year. STREAM IT.
John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
The post Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Best Christmas Pageant Ever’ on Starz, a Wholesome Faith-Based Charmer That’ll Win Your Heart appeared first on Decider.
