I'm a huge fan of Robin Williams, Candace Bergen and Joel McHale. This story line had potential, but the way it was written was downright depressing. If I had seen this movie before Robin Williams killed himself, his death wouldn't have come as such a shock. He looked and acted like he was ready to do it all the way through the film. Candace Bergen's character was lame and not very smart. She seemed to be out of touch with reality most of the time. Joel McHale's character was so filled with hate throughout most of the movie that he didn't seem appropriate for a Christmas film. I realize that holidays are horrible times for a lot of people who feel a need to spend time with people they can't stand because they're "family". But that's not the sort of thing I want to see in a holiday movie.

***contains very slight spoilers***

I don't know what to say about the exasperated haters of this movie, so I'll just explain the movie…and life… This movie is rated PG. The Motion Picture Association of America created the ratings in response to people's desire to look at a simple rating to quickly determine if a movie is suitable for children…or tender little sensitive adult minds.

The MPAA rating PG is stated as: Some material may not be suitable for children. Parents urged to give "parental guidance". May contain some material parents might not like for their young children.

If you want all puppies and perfect Christmas fantasies/stories you should stick with G-rated movies and the Hallmark Channel where all the movies are nearly exactly the same…and safe for the sensitive.

Christmas is not all mulled cider, puppies under the tree and red rider BB guns to everyone. For a lot of people, Christmas brings apprehension, family arguments and even depression and big let downs. People are so sensitive to having their little "Christmas Bubble" burst, that if they encounter negativity they want to plug their ears and yell…la la la la la… so they don't have to be exposed to it. When you set expectations so high, you are bound to be disappointed…that's life.

That's life…this is the movie:

This flick covers the not so perfect…perfection in the end. It's is a harsh, stark reality blast that culminates in a good ending with lessons learned. It's not a feel good move and the comedy is built deep in to the depression and dysfunction.

The movie has most of the usual suspects, the bah humbug old man, the kids that already know Santa was a lie all along and the one young boy that still desperately wants to believe in Santa and the dad that desperately wants to provide that Santa for him because HIS dad squashed the idea of Santa for him at a young age.

Through all the dysfunction, there is a deeper lesson learned and a reconciliation between a dad and son's long time difficult relationship. The grumpy dad learns a harsh but good lesson in the end.

It really is a decent flick and very fitting for Robin Williams' last contribution. Everybody wants to remember him as that nutsy zany character with way too much energy. But, it turns out, like a lot of entertainers, that happy, crazy exterior concealed a dark depression within…and we all know he eventually took his own life in a very unflattering way to the shock of so many. This character of the unhappy old man fits the ending of Robin's life perfectly for me…it all makes more sense now.

If people really talk this way amongst themselves today the way that this script indicates that they do, I really want no part of them. A truly vile script of people talking and truly vile ways with disgusting, unrepeatable dialogue, and calling it a Christmas movie is not a way to bring the holiday spirit out in viewers, especially when you are trying to identify this as a comedy. Robin Williams, one of the greatest talents of the 20th century into the 21st, plays a character so vile that you hope that the gun backfires on him as he shoots at something unseen in his first scene. Poor wife Candice Bergen is trying to keep the family together, and once again, you end up with a holiday film where selfish characters dominate the story, making everybody else extremely unhappy.

Joel McHale and Lauren Graham are supposed to be a happily married couple, with McHale wanting to be a completely different dad than his father Williams was. But they are saddled with equally hideous dialogue, and I can't believe that none of the actors stood up and said I don't care how much you're paying me, I'm not going to say what's on the page. So it's basically a very depressing film, and outside of Bergen, there is no one in this family other than the kids that I'd want to spend any time with at the holidays. This one is easily forgettable although I may still have some nightmares over it.