Official Rating: PG
Ah, the annual Christmas Pageant: the adorable holiday tradition where everyone sings Christmas carols, watches the same kids—Alice Wendleken the prim and proper and Elmer Hopkins the pastor's son—be Mary and Joseph, and shuffles around in bathrobes and bedsheets and sharp wings. There hasn't been anything different about the Christmas pageant for seventy-four years, and that's the way the town of Emmanuel and the director, Mrs. Armstrong wants to keep it for the seventy-fifth.
A thing they would rather not keep in town, however, is the heathen Herdman family—Ralph, Imogene, Leroy, Claude, Ollie, and Gladys—a wild pack of rapscallions who lie, steal, smoke cigars (even the girls), talk dirty, hit little kids, cuss their teachers, take the name of the Lord in vain, and set fire to Fred Shoemaker's old broken-down toolhouse. The town even thinks that the Herdmans would burst into flames if they ever went to church. But would they?
No one has a way to find out until Charlie, the brother of Beth the narrator, tells them there's food at church (to get them to stop taking his lunch). Then, they show up. Not only do they fail to spontaneously combust, but they walk away with lead roles in the pageant! How were they able to get away with this, you may ask? Mrs. Armstrong suffered an injury which rendered her unable to direct the pageant this year, making Charlie and Beth's mother Grace the director. And since the Herdmans were the only ones who volunteered to be Mary, Joseph, the Wise Men, and the Angel of the Lord, the town is stuck with them. Now what will become of the pageant? Whatever it is, it will certainly be different...
Good Parts:
Grace, the narrator's mother, is an admirable figure who helps the Herdmans learn some semblance of good behavior, encourages them to not give in to the town's low expectations for them, and is willing to let them into church when everyone else wants to put them out. Bob the father reassures Beth that you can't add to your life by worrying. He is also in the church Charitable Works Committee, giving the Herdmans a ham for Christmas. Despite being the ringleader of the Herdmans and apparently the worst of all, Imogene has some good instincts and wants to be sweet and pretty, first like a film star and then like Mary. She rallies her siblings by comparing their play to being in a movie; letting them be someone else for a while and find out that they are capable of much more than setting fire to things and beating people up. During the course of the movie, everyone learns the valuable new perspective that everyone has the possibility for good, reinforced in a post-credits scene that shows what happened to the Herdmans when they grew up.
Religion:
The whole movie is about the Christmas story from the Bible, and it shows the Herdmans coming to know what—and probably who—Christmas is all about. The story exemplifies the Christian ideal of giving everyone a chance to be delivered from evil, contrasting Grace's welcoming, hopeful kindness toward the Herdmans with the rest of the town's reluctance to associate with them, even to the point of thinking that Jesus Himself wouldn't have suffered the Herdmans to come unto Him. The general belief in the town at first is that the Herdmans are on their way to Hell by way of the state penitentiary. Beth prays often. When Imogene reads the Bible, she concurs that "the words are weird but this stuff is good." Someone says "Lord have mercy on us all" in connection with a Herdman debacle. The name of the town is Emmanuel, which means "God with us." It doesn't preach the Gospel outright, but is predominantly Christian.
Violence:
There's quite a bit, but all PG. During the opening, Ollie Herdman brings the family cat to school, which causes absolute chaos and eats a kid's goldfish (that last is known by omission, not by showing). All the Herdmans are known for their creative savagery, hitting little kids, stealing lunches, threatening to shove pussy willows into people's ears, and invent new tortures. Their methods of moviegoing are, well, interesting. Two start a fight at the door while the others sneak in. For the sake of sanity, Grace decides to ignore everything but blood at rehearsals.
In keeping with their sanguinary instincts, the Herdmans put some distinctive spins on the Christmas story. When they learn about Herod and how he wanted to kill the baby Jesus, they want there to be a Herod so they can beat him up, wanting to do all manner of murderous things to him and volunteering people to that role. Additionally, they leave the first rehearsal arguing about whether Joseph should have set fire to the inn or just chased the innkeeper into the next county. At one point all the Herdmans raise their hands. When Grace tells them that "no one is going to die in this play," all their hands go down. Naturally, all the shepherds want to quit during the casting process because Gladys hits too hard. Before a rehearsal the Herdmans launch a snow battle at the other unsuspecting kids.
Sexual Content:
The womb is mentioned in the context of how long the Herdmans have been mean. Mary is said to be "great with child"/"pregnant," a topic that greatly displeases Mrs. Wendleken, who doesn't "even want cats to have kittens or birds to lay eggs, and she wouldn't let Alice play with anybody who had two rabbits." Ralph says that as Joseph, he gets to be "some poor guy married to" Imogene/Mary.
Language:
Mostly insults occurred in this department. Charlie is known as "a full-time smart aleck." Imogene calls Alice and Beth "Cooties" and "Wallflower," respectively and says that a committee is "a bunch of idiots standing around scratching their butts." As mentioned above, the Herdmans cuss their teachers, but we don't hear any of the colorful words they use; we only see a short shot depicting Claude Herdman expostulating without sound. Also as mentioned above, they take the name of the Lord in vain, but audibly. Several times. Someone says, "you pulled that out of your" (sentence left unfinished). Grace says she's glad to see the Herdmans (which was probably the biggest lie ever said right out loud in church), tells those that want the Herdmans out to stuff it, and calls the judgmental women of the town "condescending, hypercontrolling busybodies," which they are.
Supernatural:
None.
Other:
No one really thinks Grace can do it, even her family for a while. Alice Wendleken gets jealous over the role of Mary and takes notes on the Herdmans' bad behavior. Mrs. Wendleken and other ladies of the town are mean and judgy, which historically has had a way of getting a rise out of Grace. To them, "the pageant is sacred" for a variety of reasons, none worth the immortal souls of the Herdmans.
Imogene steals Beth's locket. During their first visit to church, the Herdmans drink Communion wine, draw in the Bibles, and make a little money by swiping it out of the collection can. Ollie threatens Elmer Hopkins with the traditional finger-to-the-throat to dissuade him from volunteering to be Joseph. One of the shepherds doesn't have a costume. When Charlie suggests that he wear his father's bathrobe(which is what Charlie always does to his own father's chagrin), the other kid says that his dad doesn't have a bathrobe, but rather hangs around the house in his underwear. For a while it is thought that this will be "the first pageant in history where Joseph and the Wise Men get in a fight and Mary lights up a Soledad and hightails it with the baby."
Stylistically, they sometimes cut the audio from the Christmas carols when they would still fit nicely, and the mom and the Herdmans just randomly succumb to peer pressure out of the blue during the second act. Although it enabled them to restate that the Bible figures were tough and didn't care what anyone thought of them, the fact was said before, so that particular dark night of the soul that they put the characters seemed rather unnecessary.
Summary:
This is an all-around gem of a Christmas movie! Faithfully retelling the classic story by Barbara Robinson, The Best Christmas Pageant Ever is a riotous, heartfelt new addition to the Christmas movie canon. Although it came out a little early, we were unusually willing to kick off the season before Thanksgiving and enjoy this delightful film. The Herdmans, though naughty, manage to make everyone in Emmanuel not only nicer, but more in keeping with the Christmas spirit and the One behind it. They end up changing many lives, not the least of which is the narrator, Beth, who shares this story with every future participant in the annual pageant to teach them and the audience that Christmas—and redemption—can come for everyone. Even the worst kids in the history of the world.
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