I honestly had no interest in seeing The Best Christmas Pageant Ever. I have no sense of nostalgia for the well known 1972 novel by Barbara Robinson, or any of its subsequent adaptations. I was also a bit wary because of the reputation that precedes the faith-based movie. Movies that appeal to a religious crowd are often preachy, condescending and/or simply poorly made. And knowing that Dallas Jenkins, who created the massively successful Christian TV series The Chosen, had directed this film, I entered my screening of The Best Christmas Pageant Ever with, I don’t think unfounded, trepidation. However, as I’ve said before in other reviews, sometimes the best thing that can happen is when a film proves me wrong.

In the mid 1970s, Beth Bradley (Molly Belle Wright) is a young girl who lives with her parents Grace and Bob (Judy Greer, Pete Holmes) and brother. Every Christmas, the small town she lives in hosts a Christmas pageant, always directed by the same neighborhood crank. After she suffers an injury, Grace gets roped into directing the pageant. Meanwhile, neighborhood ‘bad kids’, the Herdmans, have a reputation for terrorizing the community. They’re latchkey children who do all the things bad children do – they steal, they fight, they smoke, etc. Once they discover going to church means free snacks, they infiltrate the church and demand to take part of this year’s Christmas pageant. Shenanigans and life lessons ensue.

This is a surprisingly lovely little movie, and given the horrific backdrop in which this film is being released, it kind of feels like the right time for audiences to see a Christmas movie like this. It’s got a lot of A Christmas Story in the DNA of how this story is told. A grown-up Beth, voiced by Lauren Graham, narrates the film, and everything she’s seeing happen feels like the biggest thing that’s ever happened to her. Molly Belle Wright, the child actress playing Beth, is very good here. Actually, all of the child actors here are doing excellent work, and there’s a believability to them that gives this story authenticity. Judy Greer and Pete Holmes are very good as well as the central mother and father, who are trying their best under some crazy circumstances. 

Early on, I felt like I wasn’t going to like this movie very much, I felt like I’d exit the whole thing feeling rather Scrooge-ish. I wasn’t digging the voiceover. Everything felt a little too cutesy for my liking. But the more you get to know these people, and the more the storytelling choices begin to make sense, you realize what capable and empathetic hands you were in this entire time. The religious elements of this story feel organic to the story being told, and instead of the antagonists being liberals or atheists, as is so often the case in faith-based cinema, they are snooty churchgoers who have forgotten what the Christmas story is all about. That almost feels progressive in a movie like this.

And it also works significantly because the movie never forgets to be a comedy. The script by Ryan Swanson, Platte Clark and Darin McDaniel, is frequently sharp and quite funny, and it somehow manages to not feel overly sentimental and maudlin, despite how easy that could be for this story. I also enjoyed the period detail of the costumes and set design. It feels very specific to an era, and doesn’t feel phony. It’s also paced well, and at just over 90 minutes, it keeps things moving along at a nice clip. There’s no reason you couldn’t take your entire family to this and no reason why anyone wouldn’t have a great time. 

I suspect the reasoning behind releasing a Christmas movie in early November is to have the film be ready for streaming right around Christmas Day, and this film would absolutely play just fine at home, no doubt. But in the troubled place we currently find ourselves in, in this country, seeing a film like this with a crowd was a treat. If the viewer is a religious person, there is plenty here to affirm their faith, and if they are not, the messages here about humanity and decency are especially valuable at this very moment. In a world where humanity seems to be a thing of the past, a reminder that it can never be, is most welcomed. I very much enjoyed The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, and I feel like it’s the kind of film that will be a seasonal staple of many viewers for Christmases to come.