The Best Christmas Pageant Ever movie review: An on-the-nose festive film

At the heart of it are the six Herdmans, dismissed unanimously by the town of Emmanuel as “the worst children in the history of the world”. Given that the name of the town itself means “God is with Us”, and it is Christmas and it is the time of loving and forgiving in “true Christian spirit”, we know the Herdmans – despite their hitting, cussing, smoking, setting things afire, etc etc, still on the wrong side of 15 – won’t find themselves out in the snow alone at the end of this movie.

Director Dallas Jenkins is the creator, director and co-writer of The Chosen, the first multi-season TV series about the life of Jesus. So he knows a thing or two about this story, and boils down its crux to a child being brought into the world by two scared parents against odds, given shelter and hope just when they had lost the same; that He may be the Son of God is an additional detail.

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“They look like refugees,” scoffs Alice (Motte), one of those perfectly groomed girls who, in her blonde hair, blue eyes and pink lips, is the polar opposite of the Herdmans. With those neat words, Jenkins bathes The Best Christmas Pageant Ever in an entirely new light.

However, that is the extent of the movie’s ambition, which is ultimately more about loving Jesus than thy alien neighbour. It’s also too on the nose about the good and not-so-good people about town, rather like a list kept by Santa Claus, where the not-so-elegant mum (Greer) of course has the better of the prissy Queen Bee. And where, above all, mothers are all about baking, decorating and preparing pageants.

But as long as the day belongs to the Herdmans, and particularly the eldest Imogene (played with heartbreaking poise by Schneider), we are ready to grant this pageant its “great” title. In the absence of their parents, Imogene is the one doing the caring, rearing and protecting of her five siblings, and when she is up there in the manger, she is a Mary who could have birthed a Jesus.

The Best Christmas Pageant Ever movie Director: Dallas Jenkins
The Best Christmas Pageant Ever movie cast: Judy Greer, Pete Holmes, Beatrice Schneider, Molly Belle Wright, Sebastian Billingsley-Rodriguez, Lorelei Olivia Mote
The Best Christmas Pageant Ever movie rating: 2.5 stars