I don’t know what you’re expecting, but let’s clear up one thing: this is not a classic cheesy feel-good holiday movie. (Cue my confusion and disappointment…)

Verdict: Most (Disappointed) Potential

Overall thoughts

In “A New York Christmas Wedding,” … a Yuletide angel shows Jennifer Ortiz (played by Nia Fairweather) what could have been, if she hadn’t pursued her rich Manhattanite boyfriend (played by Abit) but instead followed her secret feelings for her best friend in working-class Queens.

New York Post article

Sounds like an awesome premise, right? Some Christmas magic, some true love’s kiss, it’s a classic idea.

Too bad that’s not actually this movie.

Don’t get me wrong. There is, indeed, an angel who does show Jennifer what her life would be like if she’d taken a different path. But this logline is misleading. I’m picturing “she had to choose between her secret love and the expected path, and regrets her choice.” Instead we get… well, this mess.

A New York Christmas Wedding is not “she buried her feelings for her best friend and went after the expected, rich, male partner instead.” No, this is “she had a fight in high school and then we skip ahead twenty years.”

The same New York Post article quoted above states that this movie “was made in 14 days last August on a shoestring budget,” and I think that’s where most of the problems come in. The creators worked with not enough time and not enough money; it shows. I felt like I was watching a student film.

As reviewer Dwight Brown said, “Writer/director/actor Otoja Abit has created a very ambitious and potentially winsome work. The execution of his dream seems to be beyond his current skill set.”

I love the focus on diversity. The movie centers on a mostly Black and Hispanic cast and was created by a Black filmmaker. Plus, obviously, it’s queer. Love that. But the script needed edits, and the movie needed a bigger budget and more time. It’s a low-budget rush job, not the representation we deserve.

One other thing. In that New York Post article, Abit (the creator) said, “It’s a love story, not pushing an LBGT narrative.” As a queer audience member, I disagree. This smacks strongly of a message movie. There’s scenes dealing directly with homophobia, and a major plotline is whether the priest will officiate same sex marriages. This isn’t the light, feel-good, classic Christmas story the creator wants it to be.

All in the details (spoilers!)

We begin with a young Jennifer Ortiz (played by Camilla Harden) getting ready to hang out with young Gabrielle (Natasha Goodman). Gabby cancels on Jenny, who reacts with anger and hurt. Skip ahead to twenty years later.

Adult Jenny (Nia Fairweather) is working in a vet’s office and is upset about an owner not being present for their dog’s euthanasia. She gets sent home. Neither this event nor the vet’s office are ever mentioned or showed again. It’s a pointless scene.

Jenny and her flirty, happy fiance David (Otoja Abit) have dinner with his overbearing parents. Mother-in-law to be is taking over the wedding preparations whether Jenny likes it or not, and both David and his father are just kind of… letting it happen. Jenny leaves mid-dinner to go for a run and clear her mind.

While out running, Jenny witnesses a young man on a bike being hit by a car. He insists he’s fine, but she walks with him for a while to make sure. It’s obvious to the audience that this man Azrael (Cooper Koch) is our Yuletide angel in disguise. He is also a walking gay stereotype. I mean, I love his character. He’s one of the best parts of the movie. But he is an obnoxiously stereotypical gay trope.

Jenny goes home and goes to bed. She wakes up the next day to a dog licking her face and adult Gabby (Adriana DeMeo) shouting at her to get up and get ready to go so they won’t be late. Important info: Gabby died two decades ago (the timeline and details are both very fuzzy).

A bewildered Jenny walking this dog she’s never met runs into Azrael again, who explains that this is an alternate reality, one in which she’s engaged to Gabby. Oh, also her dead dad is alive in this world. Jenny gets two days to “be present” and live in this world, so “enjoy it!”

I really wanted to love this movie, but this was the moment when things started really unraveling. (Is Gabby’s name “Gabrielle” or “Gabriella”? They can’t even keep that consistent!)

It feels like the writers threw in the dead/alive father comparison because otherwise, it’s not honestly clear which reality is better. In one life, Jenny seemed genuinely happy and in love with a decent man who just happened to have an overbearing mom. Lots of people don’t like their in-laws; that doesn’t mean they can’t be happy with their partner. There’s no other problems evident in the straight, original timeline. Are we expected to automatically root for the gay relationship on the grounds of it being gay? That doesn’t work.

In the other life, she seems just as happy with Gabby. However. At least some of this happiness is clearly relief that her best friend is alive, which is fair regardless of whether they belong together romantically or not. Also, they fight a lot. There is shouting and strong emotions; Gabby clearly has a temper. This isn’t inherently a bad thing, but it is clear that neither relationship or timeline is perfect. This isn’t a shiny, beautiful, magic Christmas wish. This is just a different version of real life — one in which Gabby and Jenny have to face rampant homophobia, too, by the way.

Moving on. Jenny and Gabby go to a meeting with their priest, Father Kelly (Chris Noth). Gabby does all the talking, since Jenny has no clue what’s going on. They want Father Kelly to officiate their wedding. He says, as a Catholic priest, he can’t. Gabby gives a long speech about their involvement in the church, and how important this is to them, and also about her history of apparently being pregnant and getting some sort of advice from the priest. It’s implied — I thought — that he advised she get an abortion and she did. More on that later.

This is where the shoddy camera work gets really noticeable. Details like posture, blocking, and hand placement are obviously different between shots/takes. Earlier, the dog just disappears and reappears back at the apartment. The creators clearly forgot about him. Later, there’s a scene when a frame literally disrupts the movie, like a DVD skipping.

Jenny enjoys this new life with Gabby and her dad being alive. We get a pretty decent make out/implied sex scene. Oh, and she punches a homophobe in the face. So there’s some great stuff in the middle here.

Then it gets weird again. Do the writers understand how Catholic church services actually work? On Christmas Day, the priest decides to apparently ditch any traditional Christmas sermon and talk about homophobia instead. Then he straight-up outs his queer congregants to the entire congregation, and it’s pretty obvious at least some of them had no idea he was going to do this. Not okay! He gives the gays communion, but skips the wine for some reason. Then, surprise! Gabby and Jenny are getting married, right this minute. At least Gabby was apparently in on this part.

(If Jenny has sex and gets married in an alternate timeline, does that count as cheating on David? Never discussed.)

Jenny and Gabby go to their reception, but boom, Azrael shows up. Apparently this timeline isn’t real and she can’t stay, no matter what she wants. What was the point of putting her through all of this?? “Here, spend two days in a world where your father and first love are still alive. Have a happily ever after! Now it’s time to go home, and no, you don’t get a say.” He claims this was a lesson in “living her truth,” but what truth exactly is unclear. Is it supposed to be that she’s gay? Has no one considered that bi people exist??

Oh, plot twist — Azrael is Gabby’s dead baby. He wasn’t aborted, he was stillborn. Yeah… this was a choice.

Jenny sees a vision of David briefly (why??) before returning to her apparently fake wedding reception, with odd horror-esque music in the background. It feels like the narrative is punishing her for… something. Like she made the wrong choice somewhere in the Christmas magic plot. She knows this moment will end soon, and she can’t keep the happy ending or new wife. But she had no agency in this timeline at all, so it feels very unfair.

The next morning, Jenny wakes in the real world. David immediately addresses their fight about his mom last night and promises to stand up for her moving forward. The one flimsy excuse we had for not rooting for him is now gone. Why did they make the male partner so likeable and normal if they wanted us to root against him?

Jenny takes David to her childhood hometown, which apparently they’ve never discussed before. They go to her old church to find out what happened to Gabby. We learn that, after having sex the first time, Gabby got pregnant and went to a home for single mothers to have the baby. But the baby was stillborn, and Gabby walked out into traffic and died. Also, Father Kelly was fired for officiating same-sex marriages.

Then time travel comes in! Azrael returns to give Gabby a choice: she has one chance to go back in time. She’ll choose when to pick things up, and it’s a single one-way trip. She asks what will happen to David without her, which Azrael dismisses as “this isn’t about him, it’s about you.” Like, I’m sorry she cares about the future of her literal fiance, a person she loves?

Anyway, if Jenny goes back far enough, Gabby won’t have sex. Azrael will never have existed. The movie acts like this is a big emotional thing, but Azrael and Jenny haven’t bonded. He’s a jerk who’s been toying with her emotions. Why do we care?

Of course, Jenny goes back in time to the day of the fight. She fixes things with Gabby, who doesn’t have sex, so Azrael never exists and Gabby lives. Why this means Jenny’s dad will be alive, or why Gabby still had the pregnancy but lived in the fake timeline, is still not explained.

Christmas confusion (more spoilers!)

Is Jenny supposed to be gay? The movie never states her sexuality beyond vague comments of her needing to “be brave” and “live her truth.” I think it’s supposed to be implied that she’s gay, but the way it’s presented completely ignores the existence of bisexual people. (Hello, that’s me!) She really does seem to love both David and Gabby and struggle to choose between the two. Yet the movie acts like the Gabby timeline is obviously superior. It’s confusing.

Is Jenny Catholic in one timeline and nonreligious in the other? Her and Gabby’s status in the Catholic church and relationship with the priest is key to the plot in their timeline. No mention is made of faith in the David timeline until she shows up at a church (after years of nonattendance) to ask about what happened to Gabby. Jenny acts like being Catholic in the alternate world is totally normal, an easy adjustment. That’s a pretty big difference in lives to me! If a scene set up the idea that Jenny left the church after Gabby died, this would all make sense. But no explanation for her lack of faith in the original world is given.

One of the biggest weaknesses in this movie is the foundation for the different timelines. First of all, Azrael contradicts himself. When she wakes up in the Gabby timeline, he tells Jenny this is one of many alternate realities that exist. Later, he says none of the timeline is real, just something he’s showing her. Is it an alternate world or fake what-if scenario? Make up your mind.

Second, usually a story involving alternate timelines shows a clear point of divergence. Something specific happened to cause a chain reaction leading to this different life. The movie wants us to accept that the fight from twenty years ago was that major event, but it’s not clear how that one conversation could change everything else. For example: how is Gabby and Jenny’s high school fight at all related to Jenny’s dad dying a few years later? Why is he alive in this timeline? No explanation.

Gabby and Jenny’s influence on the priest was portrayed as so important in the fake timeline, but apparently he would’ve made the same choice to support same-sex couples anyway. Their influence didn’t matter at all. Similarly, in both the original and fake timelines, Gabby had sex, got pregnant, moved away, and had the baby. In the real world, the baby being stillborn led to her walking into traffic and dying. If she still got pregnant in the fake timeline (shown as an important point in her conversation with the priest), how was she alive to be with Jenny for the rest of that reality? In the new time-travel reality, it is Jenny making up with Gabby that leads to Gabby not having sex, which saves her from death.

When Jenny goes back in time, it is super unclear what she remembers (if anything) or how she knows what to change. Is she a 30-something in a kid’s body? Did the future timelines and adventures with an angel disappear from her memory? How did she know what exactly would change the fight and fix things with Gabby? If she still has all her memories, that is a lot to live with as a teenager again. But if she doesn’t, how does she know the details of her future Christmas wedding that she shares with Gabby at the end?

Conclusion

I can see what the creator was trying to do, and it’s a noble idea. But the movie turned out terribly. The characters exist to fill roles and don’t feel like real people. Too many questions are unanswered. Shoddy camera work and rushed editing left many noticeable mistakes. Plot points that seemed significant (an alternate reality, the lesbian couple’s influence on their church, Azrael’s true identity) are undermined by the rest of the plot (it was all fake, the priest would have been pro-gay anyway, Gabby just didn’t have sex because Jenny happened to be nice to her).

Abit markets his movie as a feel-good classic Christmas film that happens to be about queer people of color. But the importance of homophobia to the plot and the storyline with the priest aren’t light or feel-good. Movies with a pro-queer message can be great, but Abit never realized that was what he was making. The creator’s vision clashed with the actual product; the result was a confusing mess.

“Love deeply, trust your heart, and be brave.” These are the magic words Azrael and Jenny say to send her back in time. They’re a great message. If only the movie actually sent that message. If only the movie had a consistent point at all.