adoptshelterpetstoday
When the 2013 previews aired, I could hardly wait to see another new great Hallmark movie with a seasonal theme!HA!Much to my surprise and great dismay,"The Thanksgiving House" was lousy! In retrospect, it was actually the fore-runner...the predictor...the warning...of Hallmark's 2013 line of lousy new Christmas movies to come!...(which continued in to 2014).Considering readers have already read the plot above, I was disappointed that this movie ONLY had a minute relationship to T/g...that the house was questioningly built over the site of the first T/g feast......wow.It was if they had to throw something in about T/g for the reason of the title...the title that alluded to the movie primarily having a T/g plot.....BUT it was nothing more than a romance...and NOT a charming one at all.ALL of the players' parts and acting were of course consistent with the plot: pointless and boring.I always watch the new disappointing seasonal movies at least twice for a fair judgment...but this disappointing movie did not improve. It never became enjoyable as is.
Irie212
Thanksgiving has a special interest for me, or I might not have watched "The Thanksgiving House," which is an exceptionally well made chick flick. In it, the romance at the center also serves as metaphor, because it has a weighty theme: about sitting down to dinner with someone who might, or might not, be your enemy. My regret is that more parallels weren't drawn between our modern Thanksgivings and the legendary first one, because more interesting similarities were there to be drawn, and the movie would have been richer for suggesting them-- and I do mean suggesting, very lightly suggesting, because this isn't a documentary.Briefly, the plot revolves around the land occupied by a house at 825 Mayflower Road in Plymouth, Mass. (fictional address, of course), which a local historian/archaeologist named Mather suspects was the site of the legendary first Thanksgiving. The house now belongs to a lawyer named Mary, and the movie opens with a scene in her law office, where she exposes a man in his attempt at insurance fraud. So she's in the business of finding the truth, which is good, but as a lawyer, her real motives are serving her client, keeping the firm profitable, and climbing the corporate ladder. Right there we have a parallel: are the hard truths about early American history something we want exposed, at the expense of our more immediate day-to-day motives and beliefs? After all, to many Native Americans in New England and around the country, Thanksgiving is considered a "Day of Mourning."After that scene, I expected a connection to a larger theme: exposing the myth that has been built up around that original Thanksgiving, a myth that buries the truth about colonists and pilgrims who, after that one-time feast in 1621, were less likely to dine together than to scalp each other. (Yes, Europeans scalped Indians. In fact, colonial leaders placed a bounty on scalps, which encouraged the practice so much that even Native children were scalped for the money. Indians used scalping as proof of a kill in battle.)Little true history is revealed, which is fair enough: little is known about the first Thanksgiving. (Indeed, there are competing "first" claims from Virginia and Florida, among others.) There is a classroom scene, in which a teacher talks about the Wampanoag sitting down with pilgrims to give thanks, and a student asks "How'd that work out for the Wampanoag?" The teacher somberly, evasively replies, "In the long run, not so well." Not so well... that's putting it mildly. But the truth is not chick- flick material, and I therefore appreciate that such a scene was included at all. I only wish there had been more such references, necessarily oblique, to America's "aboriginal sin," as it is called. The film could also, for example, have had a passing remark about the fact there was only ever that one Thanksgiving, in 1621. Indians and pilgrims became enemies. Another missed opportunity, an important one given the house which is at the center of the plot: Indians did not hold private land, so a point could have been made about how Mary comes from the European heritage of land-owning, so she does not even want an archaeological examination of her property. How she comes to share her property would have made a useful food-for-thought parallel.And speaking of food, here, for what it is worth, is my special interest in Thanksgiving. I am a part of an initiative called Thanksgiving Table, which encourages all North Americans to add a Native American element to their Thanksgiving feast.
Late Scribe
The Thanksgiving House is the story of a character's transformation (leading her down the path of forgiveness, to a rebirth, and the embrace of a genuine and unassuming love), all that from her contact with remarkable people.Mary Ross, a successful Boston lawyer, inherits a Plymouth house from her aunt and goes to the "country" with her boyfriend Rick to make an "inventory" of what's been handed down to her. Enters Everett Mather, a local high school history teacher who has been looking for the site of the first Thanksgiving since his teenage years...Aside from Rick and every subplot involving him, the movie is a gentle and smooth ride toward an equally subdued ending. The house in the title is connected to the female lead in ways that explain who she has become both emotionally and professionally. Emily Rose portrays Mary Ross superbly. She is as aloof and detached as ever, with only the occasional display of emotion, but her work would not have been enough to put the movie above the fray this season if not for Everett's parents. The two experienced actor and actress made every scene count and were appropriately used by the story to nudge Mary toward the right emotions and decisions. They provided the kind of relationship she needed to see to understand that she could aspire to something better with her own father and in her own love life. From watching Everett's parents who welcomed her in their lives in an endearing way, she could see she didn't have to settle for what she had and could contemplate working to improve her own little family and look for a better companion. This process was filled with little gems, like when Everett's mother ignored the burgeoning bickering and brought her cookies and then gently forced herself into the house for a chat, or when Parker Mather welcomed her back to their home in a way that really made her feel welcome.The story allowed Mary to interact substantially with Everett and his parents without any of it appearing forced down our throats (or hers for that matter), and the love story (yes there was one), was so subdued that those who expected direct statements and a big kiss before the curtain might have been disappointed. The movie chose to rely on little moments and innuendos, a choice that fitted well with the casting of Emily Rose. The evolution of the relationship was followed exclusively through her point of view, via her interaction with her assistant Victoria and close-ups of their faces. Mary Ross gradually warmed up to Everett and her Olive branch to her father wasn't at all as awkward as it could have been.I understand why, in a way, Rick (the boyfriend) had to be so "beneath" her. Given where she was emotionally, a boyfriend was just for "dating" and arguably chosen solely for that purpose. Still, that relationship (in which they never seemed to spend the night under the same roof) made for the only awkward scenes in the movie. My only other beef with the story is the science behind Everett's research, but that is a minor quibble.I liked how The Thanksgiving House gently brought its leads together, how its female lead found her way back to herself, and how she arguably fell in love with the whole Mather family...
