A Christmas Story Sequel Worth Watching
The 1983 film A Christmas Story is one of the most popular seasonal films ever produced.
Narrated as a reflection by the main character, the bespectacled Ralphie Parker (played by Peter Billingsley), as an adult but viewed by the audience from the perspective of a nine year old, it recounts the distinctly American popular celebration of Christmas from the pre-war idyllic period the year before Pearl Harbor transformed the country.
Yet even though the times were vastly different from when the movie is set to when it was released in theaters, there was a shared innocence and naivete on how the world, and specifically the act of having Christmas, worked.
The dirtiest part of the film was when Ralphie accidentally mutters the queen mother of dirty words famously covered as a delayed fudge. The use of that word, amongst several others, was no more tolerated by parents in 1983 than it was in 1940.
Most Louisiana kids’ first taste of Tabasco was related to punishment, not a topping for eggs.
However, the drastic coarsening of society four decades removed from when it ran in theaters will cause the current generation to be perplexed about the severity of the cardinal sin over even the accidental use of the F-word.
The film remains a staple of Christmas movie-watching as TBS continues to run the film for 24 hours on Christmas, the house where the movie was shot is a tourist attraction outside of Cleveland, and merchandise based off the movie from leg lamps to holiday decorations are still hot sellers.
In short, A Christmas Story is for Generation X what It’s a Wonderful Life is for their parents and grandparents or Elf is for Gen-Y and millennials.
There’s no fantasy or angels, just real people humorously muddling through the Christmas season drudgery without filter.
And of course a gun is involved.
So could Hollywood recapture the magic from the first film and make it work in the sequel?
Yes – with a few caveats.
First, the original A Christmas Story was near -perfect in every way, and while they brought back many of the cast members from 1983, due to the actual time that elapsed between the two productions the actor and actress who played Ralphie’s parents are not in it.
Melinda Dillon (Mother Parker) had retired from acting, while Darren McGavin (Ralphie”s father better known as The Old Man) had died in 2006.
1980s actress Julie Hagerty (Airplane!) fills in seamlessly in the role of Ralphie’s mother in the film.
Like the actor who played him, The Old Man, who is heavily referenced, has died and the movie’s plot revolves around the grown-up Ralph Parker trying to fill in his cavernous shoes at Christmas.
Similar to the first movie, A Christmas Story Christmas (set in 1973) retains the hustle and bustle theme with the family struggling to make ends meet and utilizing what we now call “life hacks” to barely make it.
Ralph, in his early 40s, is married with a son and a daughter, and like the adolescent version of himself, pursues writing though with equally disappointing results.
Instead of penning a tribute about that coveted Red Ryder BB gun, grown-up Ralph wants to be a science fiction author though his voluminous manuscripts keep being rejected by publishers.
Coping with the loss of both his idol and his dream profession, Ralph throws himself into pulling off a successful Christmas for his kids while grudgingly reconnecting with his old childhood friends (and enemies).
The inevitable mishaps occur sending the family in a mad dash to avoid compounding a lackluster Christmas morning with the loss of The Old Man all the while giving the audience an idea of what life was like in the early 1970s in all its earthy unpretentious glory.
And there’s also a demonstration of the virtue of redemption slyly worked into the film.
Both films are time capsules of the way life was in different eras but where A Christmas Story Christmas really succeeds is making viewers comprehend the void that is life without Darren McGavin and his character.
Just don’t expect to see any Christmas carolers from the Bo Ling Restaurant.
A Christmas Story Christmas is currently streaming on HBO Max and considering the steep price of a movie ticket in theaters these days, even a month long subscription is well worth it to watch this one movie if you loved the 1983 original.
And when the kids are tucked in, you can sneak in a few episodes of The Sopranos during the subscription period.