Thomas Kinkade's Christmas Cottage Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		3.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		3.0

Thomas Kinkade's Christmas Cottage Blu-ray Movie Review

Peter O'Toole is the best thing about this sugary Christmas story.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman October 25, 2010

One person’s art is another person’s kitsch. Where does the fine line between “real” art and “mere” illustration dwell? How did someone like Norman Rockwell ascend to his illustrious reputation while other magazine illustrators, like J.C. Leyendecker, are known only to a relative handful? None of these perhaps pointless questions are really addressed in Thomas Kinkade’s Christmas Cottage (also known as Thomas Kinkade’s Home for Christmas), though they lie just beneath the surface of several high minded monologues, mostly voiced by supporting star Peter O’Toole, in this “inspired by true events” film which is oddly both well written, at least in dribs and drabs, and also soaking in the sort of sugary sentiment one usually associates with Hallmark made for television movies. Kinkade is a real life painter, a master of self-promotion, and Christmas Cottage is evidently at least partially culled from his own late 1970s life story. Kinkade has actually registered his trademark “Painter of Light,” and it accompanies his work like the imprimatur of a divinity. Here, in Christmas Cottage, we get the genesis of the phrase, as O’Toole’s character, a mentor based on Glen Wessels, another California painter, screams at Kinkade (Jared Padalecki), “Paint the light! Paint the light!”

Part of the maddening aspect to this almost schizoid feature is the passing eloquence of scenarist Ken LaZebnik’s dialogue, especially when voiced by an actor of O’Toole’s stature. The basic plotline of Christmas Cottage deals with a late 1970s trip back home to Placerville, California, by Kinkade, where he discovers his mother (Marcia Gay Harden) has fallen on hard times and is about to lose their family cottage to foreclosure. Kinkade takes a job from a local promoter, Ernie (Chris Elliott, billed here as Elliot, which I hope is not one of those Dionne Warwicke things), to paint an outdoor, wall sized mural of the town, which Ernie wants to utilize in a local television campaign which will proclaim Placerville “The Christmas Tree Capital of the World.” Painting the mural brings Kinkade up close and personal with the ancient dichotomy of art versus commerce, something the real life Kinkade doesn’t seem to have any problem resolving. He’s helped along by Glen, who in his old age has found himself unable to complete what the elder painter expects will be his final work, an homage to a lost love. If you knew that LaZebnik wrote many episodes of television’s Touched by an Angel, would that help you to guess about the foregone confluence of events which allows Glen to finish his piece and the Kinkades to save their beloved home?

If LaZebnik often rises to the occasion with some nicely nuanced thoughts about the power of art, he just as quickly sinks this enterprise with hackneyed characters and dangling plot points which seem pasted onto the proceedings like paper snowflakes on a child’s Christmas art project. Kinkade’s “big city” girlfriend is never developed beyond a coquettish glance or two, so when she accosts Kinkade late in the movie for his putatively small time ambitions, it just seems completely odd and out of place. Similarly, the shtick Elliott and other supporting performers, like Night Court’s Richard Moll, is given just falls flat a lot of the time. LaZebnik doesn’t seem to know if he wants to pull the audience’s leg or its heartstrings, and the film lurches tonally rather uneasily as a result.

If O’Toole is the creative spark which elevates Christmas Cottage at least partially above the rather low bar usually set by films in this idiom, several other performances, while perfectly competent, just kind of lie there like year old fruitcake. Harden seems, not to intentionally pun, too hard in this role, and some of her line readings are virtually somnambulistic. Padalecki is genuine enough in his cliché-ridden role, and he does get one big showy, tear streaked scene with O’Toole that will no doubt go on his permanent audition reel, but there is really nothing for him to ultimately sink his teeth into. Richard Burgi (Desperate Housewives, The Sentinel) is quirky as Harden’s ex and Kinkade’s father, and invests his few scenes with some odd, but interesting, bits. Elliott is too smarmy for his own good, often the case with this actor. Charlotte Rae and Ed Asner are fine in quick supporting cameos, but again, their roles are cookie cutter characters that offer few opportunities for either fire or nuance.

Large swaths of the story also seem to have ended up on the cutting room floor. Kinkade’s Placerville girlfriend shows up to admire his mural, and then promptly disappears until the final few minutes when she’s his new main squeeze (she ultimately became his wife in real life). The most disconcerting breach comes at the denouement, when the entire town shows up, a la It’s a Wonderful Life, to help rescue Maryann Kinkade from at least part of her trials. Thomas talks about his mother’s impact on the town, and while it’s been hinted at discursively, precious little of that impact is actually shown, so this aspect just seems completely contrived.

Thomas Kinkade’s Christmas Cottage had a long delayed theatrical opening and indeed most people may remember it from its broadcast on Lifetime. That sort of cable niche is probably perfectly a propos for a film this stilted and with such shallow ambitions. Kinkade insists in one of the supplements on this Blu-ray that every painting of his could be adapted into a film. He may think he’s creating art with this self-produced adaptation, but it plays much more like an illustration, pretty and somewhat appealing, but strictly two dimensional.

Thomas Kinkade's Christmas Cottage Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Thomas Kinkade's Christmas Cottage has a sort of middling AVC encoded 1080p image (in 1.78:1) which really seems more like a high end television outing than a feature film. Colors are reasonably well saturated though never astoundingly robust and the image is also reasonably sharp and well defined, but there's really not very much here that screams hi-def. In fact this has the patently two dimensional look of HD video, though it evidently was filmed, but I guess that is perfectly in step with the film's generally rather flat aspect. The best thing about this transfer is the lovely outdoor location footage, which captures the town of Placerville and its surround area in a fair degree of late fall and early winter glory. Some of the interior scenes can't quite match the sharpness and contrast of the exterior footage, and they suffer by comparison.

Thomas Kinkade's Christmas Cottage Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Christmas Cottage sports a decent lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track that is perfectly fine as far as it goes. That's just not all that far. This is a quiet, intimate family film with few if any boisterous segments that scream for a lossless surround mix. Fidelity here is just fine, and the underscore, including some light rock tunes, does afford the mix at least occasional usage of the surround channels. There's a smattering of LFE with motorcycle and truck engines, but otherwise this is a slight but steady mix that won't surprise, but which won't disappoint either.

Thomas Kinkade's Christmas Cottage Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

As is sometimes the rather strange case, some of these extras are more compelling than the film itself. I wish some of this information and poignant background had been better handled within the confines of Christmas Cottage.

• A good Commentary with Kinkade and director Michael Campus gives us a lot of background on Kinkade's story and how it was adapted for this version.
• Deleted Scenes (SD; 12:07) does feature some deeper background on the Kinkade boys, as well as some slightly extended scenes, with optional commentary by Kinkade and Campus.
• Building the Christmas Cottage (SD; 18:14) is an OK making of featurette with a little too much of Campus and Kinkade talking about themselves.
• On the Set with Ed Aknik (SD; 2:21) is a short interview with a purported "extra". If you're an anagram lover, go to town.
• Home for Christmas: A Conversation with Thomas Kinkade (SD; 10:32) has the artist informing us all of his paintings would make excellent films. He does have some cogent comments to make about the importance of home and family.
• Christmas with the Cast (SD; 8:46) features short interviews with all of the principal cast (at least two of whom are Jewish) reminiscing about Christmas and what it means to them.
  
  

  Thomas Kinkade's Christmas Cottage Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 
  

  

  If you're the type who wells up with tears at a traditional Hallmark Christmas card, Christmas Cottage is probably going to be A-OK with you. If you're looking for well developed characters and a nuanced storyline, it's probably best to look elsewhere. O'Toole is magnificent in his brief role and ignites the screen when he's on it. Otherwise, this makes for an OK stocking stuffer or evening's rental.