Since its release in 2005, The Family Jewel (available on Disney+) has been a regular in queer Christmas movie picks as an antidote to the usual noise of old-fashioned rom-coms in ugly reindeer sweaters. And that apart from the explicit homage to Judy Garland in Cita en San Luis, Vincente Minnelli’s Christmas Eve classic, there are only two gay characters in this twist on the mother-in-law myth.
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The story stars the Stones, a close-knit progressive clan who smoke marijuana as a family and decide to balance the stress of a difficult Christmas with her older brother’s girlfriend, an uptight and uptight executive who comes home from Connecticut sheltered in a suit and a pair of heels. She is played by Sarah Jessica Parker in one of the best works of her career. Parker wanted to take a break, she had just become a mom and had finished the sixth and final season of Sex and the City when the opportunity presented itself, terrified at the thought of not being accepted, stepping into the shoes of a bride her future parents-in-law and especially her mother-in-law Diane Keaton, a tension they all contribute to and which eventually makes her the worst Christmas guest.
Thomas Bezucha wrote and directed the film, inspired by his family’s hostility toward his sister’s boyfriend. The original title was: I f—ing hate her and the idea was to do an indie film for a Sundance festival. The project was already underway when The Father of the Bride (2000) was brought forward and the producers decided to call it off. Four years later, Bezucha was able to revisit his idea with some modifications and a much more commercial focus. With a cast of top Hollywood actors, the new title was The Family Stone, or La joya de la familia in its Spanish premiere.
an eccentric mother
The plot revolves around the relationship between the three sons and two daughters of a family gathering to celebrate Christmas in a cozy home run by an almighty and somewhat eccentric mother, played by Keaton, and an affable father with the looks of a professor is performed in Craig T. Nelson’s skin. The open matriarchy finds its challenge when the eldest son, played by Dermot Mulroney, an icon of early 21st century romantic comedy, decides to show up with his unbearable girlfriend, Meredith.
The eldest daughter, a pregnant Pasota, played by Elisabeth Reaser, is also part of the Christmas table; cheeky little teacher brought to life by Rachel McAdams; the middle son, a handsome documentary filmmaker living in San Francisco (Luke Wilson), and the youngest, a gay architect in the shoes of deaf actor Tyrone Giordano, who comes with his partner (Brian White). Last and unexpected is Meredith’s kind and easygoing sister (Claire Danes).
Sarah Jessica Parker in The Gem of the Family.
The film is organized around the idea of the intruder who can break the Christmas harmony. The perfect aim to provoke a series of misunderstandings that only cover up the melancholy underlying the characters in the film, which materializes in a long sequence with Judy Garland’s Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas in the background. Family Gem is a romantic sitcom with some memorable slapstick gags, but mostly it’s a family drama whose sadness is only revealed. It all starts and ends with the image of a mother alone gazing at the Christmas tree, a matriarch inspired by Diane Keaton’s own mother, clinging to everything in the kitchen with her gray hair, her coffee mug and her computer means a simple ring.
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