The defence The Sentimental Softie
“Sincerity is not manipulation.”
The film risks embarrassment to make emotion communal, and that openness is harder than fashionable detachment.
Back to trending 
Zoey's Extraordinary Christmas
Comedy · Drama · 2021
On her first holiday without her father, Zoey attempts to create a magical Christmas for her family just like the ones Mitch used to do.
Movie details
Zoey's Extraordinary Christmas
“Start the holidays on a high note.”
2021 Comedy · Drama 1h 39m
Critical arithmetic
One number, for now.
Scores change. Arguments endure.
TMDB
6.4 / 10
Community rating
On her first holiday without her father, Zoey attempts to create a magical Christmas for her family just like the ones Mitch used to do.
CriticWise case file
What this film says about your taste.
Not a recommendation score. A measure of how closely the film’s taste signals resemble yours.
The archetype split
Who fights over Zoey's Extraordinary Christmas?
For the defence
The Sentimental Softie
“You came to feel something, and you will.”
Read their case For the prosecution
The Cool Ironist
“Feeling things is a little embarrassing.”
Read their objectionThe split comes from the same five-axis model used by the test, not audience ratings or review sentiment.
Taste neighbourhood
Nearby on the taste map.
TMDB supplies the candidates. CriticWise reorders them by craft, strangeness, prestige, emotion, and pace.
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SubUrbia
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The Middle Man
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A Simple Twist of Fate
Family · 1994
When Michael McCann is thrown over by the woman he loves, he becomes something of a misanthrope and a miser, spending all of his spare money on collectible gold coins. Living in the same town is an affluent family with two sons: John and Tanny. Tanny's a wild boy, whom John cannot control, and one night he breaks into McCann's house, and steals the gold and disappears, which nearly confirms McCann's distrust of mankind. But then, a mysterious young woman dies in the snow outside McCann's house, and her small daughter makes her way to McCann's house and into McCann's life and heart.
On Becoming a Guinea Fowl
Comedy · 2024
On an empty road in the middle of the night, Shula stumbles across the body of her uncle. As funeral proceedings begin around them, she and her cousins bring to light the buried secrets of their middle-class Zambian family.
Small Apartments
Comedy · 2012
When a clumsy deadbeat accidentally kills his landlord, he must do everything in his power to hide the body, only to find that the distractions of lust, the death of his beloved brother, and a crew of misfit characters force him on a journey where a fortune awaits him.
Where it lives
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Names above the title
The people responsible.
Cast & crew
Directed by
Richard Shepard
Written by
Austin Winsberg
Jane Levy
Zoey Clarke
Skylar Astin
Max Richman
Alex Newell
Mo
John Clarence Stewart
Simon Haynes
Andrew Leeds
David Clarke
Alice Lee
Emily Kang
Michael Thomas Grant
Leif Donnelly
Court is in session
Put Zoey's Extraordinary Christmas on trial.
Two incompatible taste archetypes. One film. Read the arguments, then issue a completely binding cultural ruling.
The prosecution The Cool Ironist
“The strings are showing.”
Every cue tells you exactly what to feel and when, leaving sentiment to do the work character should have done.