Movie Review: The Best Christmas Pageant Ever (2024) seen in theatres

Drama; suitable for all ages; mature themes, some emotional scenes

This movie follows a group of six troublesome children who are siblings as they plot to enter their town’s yearly Christmas pageant despite using their numbers to intimidate those around them into not choosing to play the parts that they have reserved for themselves. With their bad attitudes and knack for making everyone around them miserable, the pageant is in danger of failing for the first time in many years.

From the beginning of this movie, I thought the children were nothing more than spoiled brats as they were nothing but bullies to everyone around them including adults. They were doing and saying things to the adults that would have got me in trouble if I said that to mom or anybody else growing up even if I didn’t like them. However, contrary to what the adults should have done in response to the children’s behaviour, they sat around and allowed themselves to be intimidated and give in to every one of the children’s demands hence my conclusion that they are spoiled brats. Having said that though, I knew at some point near the end of this film that one or all of the children would blame their home life as the main reason for the way they were acting. Throughout this film, they are shown to have no parents or guardians to teach them the right way of living. There’s no structure in their lives and no one to show them the difference between right and wrong. I’m sure they wanted to be good but they needed someone to show them what being good meant. With this in mind, I think this movie’s message is to not be so judgmental towards people because of the way they act as they might not mean it and are just really hard done by on the inside. Another message within this movie is to look at things from bad people’s perspectives rather than be so quick to assume their just bad people. Sometimes in order to find out why people are the way they are in to look at how bad their lives are on a personal level. Throughout the movie, these kids are shown to not even understand what Christmas is. They probably never had a tree or presents and it is very clear that they might not have had parents that loved them. With all of this in mind, it makes me realize that it’s hard to be kind and generous for children when they grew up having to fight for a decent life. This movie shows that no matter how bad a person’s life can be, if given the chance they can be just one something needs to make it special and this is what happens in the movie. By the end of the pageant, the audience is giving them a standing ovation for their efforts following multiple people’s claims that their inclusion in the pageant would ruin it. The fact is they can never prove themselves if they’re never given the chance to. To me, the moral of this movie is that it’s what on the inside that counts.

For those who are fans of WWE, the way the movie began gave me a bit of a nexus vibe in the way the children were intimidating everybody. Their antics in the first half of this movie mirror those of the nexus in WWE when the faction started as they used their strength in numbers to intimidate those around them just as nexus did when the group started as they instilled fear into other wrestlers just as the children did.

Trivia: This is the first movie review I’ve done which has incorporated a comparison to WWE. For those of you who are wondering…..no I do not review Wrestling that I’ve watched despite being a big fan of it in the mid 2000’s. This was just coincidentally added to this blog as comparisons to the way the children acted could have been made to the nexus faction.

This movie is definitely recommended. I’m really glad I saw it.

Movie rating: 10 out of 10

Next movie review: Rat Race (2001)