You Are My Home - Holiday Movie Musings

On Netflix, this one came up recommended among a pile of Christmas movies, and has a little spring of holly in the title. So I added it to my list for 2020 new holiday releases and watched it tonight.

It is not—I repeat NOT—a Christmas movie. It is roughly set at Christmas, in order to create a sense of urgency for the subject matter, and to pluck the heartstrings around familial traditions. But this movie is about a girl whose mother was taken by ICE, anyone she could turn to was ALSO kidnapped by ICE, and was living on the street briefly when our (of course, cynical-about-everything female) protagonist finds her.

Her good friend from school (played by Alyssa Milano) works for child services, specifically with trying to reunite kids with parents kidnapped by ICE. There are lots of references to how much more this is happening, large amounts of US citizen children being in group homes, and goes so far as the little girl crying she doesn’t want to end up in a big detention center where her mom will never find her. No joke, y’all, while the material is treated with sensitivity and empathy, it is not easy to watch at some points knowing this is a reality families are facing right here, today.

The little girl is a brilliant little actress and brings so much light and life to the character. Maybe too much sunshine for a girl whose mother is lost, possibly for good. But I think they are trying to a) show her tenacity of spirit and b) kept he movie from going to too dark a place. The love story is rushed in the extreme (insta’ wannabe family in less than 2 weeks kind of fast), but the casting is great, and the acting is good.

I liked the movie overall, but DO NOT RECOMMEND as a holiday film, full stop.