Christmas...Again?!

Ro is eleven and spends Christmas the same way every year. This year something changes: her father is with someone new and that person will be in the house too. Ro does not want it. She makes a wish and the wish takes; she wakes the next morning and the same day starts again. Christmas does not end. At first she finds it entertaining; whatever she does has no consequence. Then she is bored. Then she notices something: the day will only move on if she puts something right, and what she has to put right is her own attitude. Andy Fickman directs. Scarlett Estevez plays Ro; Daniel Sunjata, Alexis Carra and Priscilla Lopez are in the cast. It is an American production, made for television. The narrative uses the repeating day; the shape is a known idea in the cinema and the film adapts it for children. The matter it treats is a family order changing; how a holiday goes in a separated family is its subject. The narrative builds no villain; the father's new partner means well and the problem is the child's refusal. The film puts a Latin family at its centre and the traditions are inside the narrative. The narrative comes close to a lecturing tone and says its message openly. The repetitions are used for comedy and the pace is kept quick. Its limit is scale; the production is at television level, the narrative simple, and the ending too tidy. Who it is for: viewers who like family films and Christmas productions. Who it is not for: it is simple, didactic, and the ending easy.