This film contains a bunch of oddball characters who somehow together form a family.
Christmas Flint (McKenna Grace) has a down-on-his-luck lawyer for a father (Jim Gaffigan) and a fascination with everything outer space. She has a reputation for wetting the bed and her only friend, Joseph (Charlie Shotwell) is struggling his sexuality.
When Christmas finds out that she could have a chance to put a message into space, she jumps at it, forming a Birdie Troop along with Joseph and three other misfits, Anne-Claire (Bella Higginbotham) who is a wannabe evangelist with only one eye, Hell-No Price (Milan Ray) who is somewhat of a bully, forcing other kids to pay a toll if she catches up with them and Smash (Johanna Colon) who smashes things as her name says. Leading them is her dad's secretary, Rayleen (the always great Viola Davis) who does so reluctantly but manages to find hidden talents in the troop which gets them through to the jubilee where they face off against the picture perfect but nasty other troop from Wiggly, led by the sneakily cruel Miss Massey (Allison Janney). Needless to say, the skit Troop Zero has arranged is actually good and elaborate but their fancy costumes are not appreciated and then Christmas does wet herself, as she was nervous.
Though Troop Zero doesn't win, the engineer with NASA is so impressed with them that he records them anyway. And Christmas finally has some solid friends and Rayleen has decided to finally go back to pursuing her law degree, not letting her past infatuation with a man get in her way. So everyone's a winner.
Despite the film not being much or only having half of a happy ending, the quirky characters are acted brilliantly. And the idea was done well. Grade: B
Side Notes:
-Who names their child Christmas?
-It would have been super nice to learn Hell-No and Smash's real names.
-It is also amazing that all of those kids could pee on demand in support of Christmas.
-Fluffy, the dog, needed more screen time.
-Leaving the children basically alone in the woods is illegal.
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