Susan Granger's review of "Noel" (Flexplay Group)
With an innovative marketing concept, "Noel" is not only opening theatrically for the holiday season - with a one-time showing on TV's TNT on Nov. 28th - but it's also available via Amazon.com on unique DVDs that self-destruct within 48 hours of opening the sealed package.
Supposedly set in Manhattan but filmed in snowy Montreal, the spiritual plot interweaves three unrelated stories about faith, love and the redemptive powers of a frosty Christmas Eve.
Rose (Susan Sarandon) is a lonely, divorced book editor who spends much of her time in the hospital visiting her Alzheimer-afflicted mother. Across the hall, she discovers a dying patient who, apparently, has never had a visitor except a former priest (Robin Williams). There's Mike (Paul Walker), an about-to-be married policeman who has trouble controlling his jealousy where his Latina fiancée (Penelope Cruz) is concerned - until he has a bizarre encounter with a Artie (Alan Arkin), a widower who is convinced that the handsome cop is the reincarnation of his late wife. Finally, there's an abused, seriously disturbed young man (Marcus Thomas) who yearns to recreate the memory of his one happy Christmas - in a hospital Emergency ward.
Along with playing a brief cameo as a bearded thug, actor Chazz Palminteri makes a heavy-handed theatrical feature film directorial debut and, obviously, his primary contribution was attracting such a stellar cast for this maudlin, obviously low-budget holiday concept. Utilizing a script by David Hubbard that's heavy on syrupy sentiment and light on logic, its antecedent is obviously the Frank Capra classic "It's a Wonderful Life." On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, "Noel" is a tear-jerking 5, focusing on the hopeful warmth beneath the glitter and tinsel.
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