| A Family Thanksgiving | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Neill Fearnley |
| Produced by | Michael G. Larkin Michael R. Goldstein Ian Hay |
| Written by | Emily Baer |
| Starring | Daphne Zuniga Gina Holden Faye Dunaway |
| Music by | Peter Allen |
| Cinematography | Michael Balfry |
| Editing by | Stein Myhrstad |
| Distributed by | Hallmark Channel |
| Release date(s) | November 6, 2010 |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
A Family Thanksgiving is a 2010 Hallmark Channel Original Movie directed by Neill Fearnley.
Contents |
Claudia (Daphne Zuniga) is a very successful attorney who was once graduated at the top from Harvard Law School. Nowadays, she is working hard to become the first female partner within a high-powered firm. Her life should be perfect, though her personal problems keep stacking. Recently, her sister invited her to deliver the family Thanksgiving a self-made apple pie. Claudia, however, is everything but the housewife her sister is, and is frightened by the idea alone.
Meanwhile, Claudia is ordered to make sure that a corporate client will demolish a park to build an enormous development. In order to realize this, she has to order her employees to work on Thanksgiving Day, because the due date, a court battle, is the day after. During this process, Claudia meets Gina (Faye Dunaway), a mysterious old woman who makes it her goal to teach Claudia some moral lessons. Gina takes her to an alternative world, where Claudia is a low-profile, but happily married woman of two children.
Despite past prejudices on married life, Claudia finds out that she is falling in love with the man whom she is married to. Furthermore, she grows closer to her sister. While experiencing her new life, the way it could have been, she learns that she is missing out on a lot. Just as she is about to settle with her new life, Gina returns to take her back. Claudia is reluctant to return to her corporate life, and thus must consider what she is most thankful for.
In a press interview, Daphne Zuniga discussed the film: "I loved the idea when it came to me. But I worked with the writer (Emily Baer) to make sure the message wasn't that this woman should have had kids and regrets it. Instead, my character is a woman who is hugely successful, about to make partner in her law firm, has all the money she needs, a great wardrobe...and then she gets thrown into a life that shows her what it would be like if she'd made a different choice."
An October 2010 press release from Hallmark Channel revealed that the film was set to premiere on November 6.
The entertainment magazine Variety felt the story provided a decent case for personal balance between having a career and a family.[1] Added the critic: "...A perfect message for troubled economic times as well as the reflective aspect of the Thanksgiving season."
The Daily News expressed its disappointment in the film's "formulaic and uninspired" script, and furthermore criticized Zuniga and Dunaway for "hardly trying" to deliver a performance.[2] The critic's discontent with the script was further explained: "Hallmark films are allowed some liberties with coincidence and unlikely events that service the plot, but this one exceeds its quota early. [..] A Family Thanksgiving leaves an uncharacteristically unpleasant aftertaste, because it ends up suggesting not just that Claudia is missing part of life, but that successful working women almost by definition must be misguided and miserable. That may not be the intent, but a lazy script can have inadvertent side effects."[2]