by Angela Walker, Executive Editor and Director of Producer Relations for ChristianCinema.com
What if the world threw you a birthday party . . . and you weren’t invited? In The Perfect Gift, a spoiled schoolgirl, her overworked executive mother and a disillusioned young minister each receives an uplifting message about friendship, commitment, and the truest meaning of Christmas from a friendly but mysterious drifter named Jess.
A Political Stranger
Jefferson Moore and company decided to wrap up their series of Stranger films (The Perfect Stranger, Another Perfect Stranger, and the TV series Stranger) with an original story called The Perfect Gift. Once again he casts himself in the lead role as a stranger in town, but this time his name is a little more obvious: Jess.
He also draws again on the young Christina Dawn Fougnie as his co-star. In this case, she’s not the sweet young child of Clancy, but a spoiled adolescent whose behavior reminds parents why the pre-teen years can be so hard. Like Clancy, Fougnie is the daughter in a single-parent home, but this time her mother isn’t a drug addict, she’s an approval addict trying to manage an office “Holiday” party.
Fougnie does a decent of job of playing the part of a spoiled young girl, but does it a little one-dimensionally. I think that she could have been helped with better scripting for her character and fleshing her role out a bit more. Moore again plays the stranger who turns out to be a divine emissary, but where his low-keyed approach to the role worked in the other films, in this one he underplays. He’s surrounded by other characters that are stronger, so he fades into the background when really he should be more prominent, more present.
Muddled Story, but Great Music
I really like Jefferson Moore. He created some excellent apologetics films with The Perfect Stranger and Another Perfect Stranger, and I enjoyed the growth of his craft in Clancy. However, this film doesn’t show the continued progress I was hoping for. Instead, it seems a little muddled between the Stranger type of story, and a story centered on the political battle over using the word “holiday” in lieu of “Christmas.”
As Christmas films go, this isn’t bad, and it’s nice to have a new faith-themed film to watch. I found myself wishing for more, however. It needed to be either more of the Stranger style, or more of the political battle over Christmas. The characters needed to be either stronger and deeper or the movie should have been less of a character-driven piece.
One enjoyable part from start to finish is the music. The score is very well-done, and from the moment the opening scene starts to the end of the film, it fits perfectly. If only everything else did.
Rating
The Perfect Gift does not have an MPAA rating. There’s nothing offensive in it unless you object to the political argument over the use of “Holiday” vs. “Christmas.” (Come to think of it, Holiday is derived from “Holy-Day,” so either way, it points to Christ.)
Courtesy of the producers and a national publicist, Angela screened a promotional copy of The Perfect Gift.
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