Skyward Christmas: Opening Salvo

Dan said, right before the movie started, “What do you want to bet it starts with the Gilstrap family trimming the tree?”

The story began at the airport, and we all had a moment, like, “Oh, well, Dan, you can’t win ’em all …” But then came the second scene, and there was the Gilstrap family trimming the tree, and Dan shouted, “I TOLD YOU. Didn’t I TELL you?” Yes, yes, you told us.

“Skyward Christmas” was like that. It fulfilled your expectations, but unlike other movies that fulfill your expectations and are therefore satisfying, “Skyward Christmas” was embarrassing. You kept hoping they would just, you know, stop embarrassing you, but they could not leave well enough alone. She has one line, where she is crying in the truck over damn Coop’s Oedipal issues, and her boyfriend (you know, Ben Marley) is trying to talk her through it, and the scene ends with her remembering the horror she just experienced, and saying bitterly, “Some Christmas present.”

It’s strange to be in the presence of something so wrong. It’s not that any of the individual elements were bad. They weren’t. Mrs. Roeper is a good actress. No shame there. Geoffrey Lewis is a reliable journeyman-actor. He’s fine. Bibi Besch is a highly-experienced television actress, used to showing up and doing her part. She’s okay. But the filming of it was abominably sentimental, and the script was clunky, bossy, and dripping with sentiment. At least Skyward had the tart presence of Bette Davis, to really bring a sense of reality to the situation – a wheelchair-bound girl who wants to fly … and without that grounding presence Skyward Christmas is, frankly, lost. Also, the gravitas (if you want to call it that) of experienced actors like Marion Ross and Lisa Whelchel is now gone, and the entire thing rests on Suzy Gilstrap’s shoulders, and she can’t handle it. (I cannot believe I just associated “gravitas” with Lisa Whelchel. But I’m dead serious.)

Anson Williams and Ron Howard still co-produced the thing, but direction and script were in other hands entirely. I’m not saying that Anson Williams is on par with Ernest Lehmann, or something, but his elements, in Skyward, although obvious and rather clunky, worked. He had an understanding of balance, of how one scene needed to balance another, how it would be more interesting to have her sister be supportive rather than bitchy, and her potential boyfriend be a loser-in-hiding, rather than a true high school hero. In Skyward Christmas, that subtlety (and I am using the term loosely in this case) is lost, and we are just left with the swooning soundtrack and the terrible script.

There was one scene, a very simple one, actually, with the family trimming the tree, and maybe it was because we were all exclaiming about Dan’s prophetic comments, but we missed a tiny bit of the scene, and it was written in such a strange way that we literally could not figure out what was going on. It was a group befuddlement. The mother was staring at a photo album and saying, longingly, “This will be our first Christmas without him.” We all shouted, “WHO?” The whole family kept talking about “him”, but it was filmed in such a drippy no-life kind of way that we weren’t even sure what to focus on … we also were baffled by the fact that an 8-year-old younger brother had been inserted into the story … “who the hell is that?” we asked each other … And seriously, this isn’t like a David Lynch script, where you really need to pay attention or you will miss the subtleties … This was a stupid script and we were totally lost. “What the hell are they talking about?” we asked each other. The father would enter the scene and say, “He is free to join us any time …” We all shouted, “WHO?” It was hysterical. We’re smart people but we could not understand Skyward Christmas.

Of course, it turns out, that they were all babbling about Grandpa, who had been left behind in St. Louis, and had not forgiven the family for moving. Grandpa, seriously, let your daughter live her own life.

Bibi Besch sits holding the “Christmas album” (the movie made me into a real Scrooge, I rolled my eyes at every Christmas reference) and she has a long monologue about Grandpa (her father), and how he made an angel to go on the top of the tree, and she thought longingly about that angel. Then comes an inadvertently funny line: “He made it out of smashed up light bulbs …” She says this in a sweet and nostalgic voice, but the image of an angel made up of jagged broken glass would not leave my mind. We were all guffawing. Jesus, Grandpa, you make Christmas ornaments out of jagged smashed-up light bulbs? No wonder the family fled to Texas. You’re frightening.

Suzy Gilstrap tries to comfort her mother. But this family insists on staying in the mood they are in. They will not BE comforted. They enjoy feeling sorry for themselves, and they enjoy being victimized by their own emotions.

I’ll walk you through the progression of the “movie”.

Our story opens with Suzy Gilstrap flying through the air. She is engaged in a radio conversation with the airport on the ground (you know, Billie’s airport). You can see that she is now confident and at home in the air (which means trouble, eventually. Girl is WAY over-confident), because she’s saying stuff like, “10-4 good buddy, Foxhole-Niner-Gilstrap is due east-northwest, come in, good buddy” – or whatever … babbling on in the code of the air.

I was more interested in the fact that Ben Marley is behind the counter in Billie’s restaurant, wearing a white apron, and listening to the radio conversation going on, looking concerned and interested. I had no idea who anyone else was, since … well … they all look alike … Mrs. Roeper looks like Bibi Besch and Coop looks vaguely like the man playing Gilstrap’s father … and it was all a mish-mash of TV-ready faces sitting there. But no matter. I was just looking at Marley anyway.

It becomes clear that this flight is a big deal. I don’t know why. I mean, I eventually learned why, but in the opening sequence of the film I was more confused by the new cast, and couldn’t focus on anything else. Anyway, this is a big flight for Julie, so her parents sit in Billie’s restaurant, all tensed up and worried and proud (yuk), and we see Billie (Mrs. Roeper) also up in the air (with Julie? It’s not clear), beaming with glimmery-eyed pride at what her pupil is doing. We see Coop, all crinkly-eyed and emotional, listening to the radio conversation … and it’s supposed to be a tense suspenseful moment. Everyone being gobsmacked by Julie’s fearless control of her aircraft.

Whatever.

Then she comes in to land, speaking in her gibberish confident code. There is a flurry of activity on the ground, as the entire restaurant runs outside to watch her landing. Ben Marley even gets to shout, “YEEEEEEEEE HAW”, but he can be forgiven. I mean, look at the boy.

Everyone is cheering like maniacs as the plane comes in to land.

They just won’t stop cheering.

I wish they’d shut up.

Finally, the plane pulls up – and yes, Mrs. Roeper is in the back seat – and they open the cockpit, and she calls out, “Julie, I now pronounce you a private pilot”. Or something along those lines. The cheering lunatics just keep cheering. Julie is happy, validated. Coop (go away, Coop) goes and tenderly lifts her out of the plane (her family is still screaming) and Ben Marley runs to get her wheelchair, wheeling it up in the middle of the jabbering crowd.

Champagne is popped and glasses poured all around. These people need to get a life. Also, Julie is a minor and as far as I can tell, so is Scott. Why are they drinking champagne? Her parents stand nearby, glamorous and unreal-looking, all worried and proud at the same time. The entire damn restaurant appears to be standing on the tarmac, celebrating Julie’s graduation. Don’t these people have work to do?

Ben Marley tenderly gives his girlfriend a cup of champagne.

He has a line that goes something like, “To Julie … the kindest … most beautiful … sweetest pilot in Texas … I love you.”

That gives you an idea of the kind of script we’re dealing with here. BUT. BUT. I will say that Ben Marley seems to have an instinct for this kind of thing, and he breezes through the line, without too much fanfare (he doesn’t dwell on it, which would be the worst possible choice), and even makes “sweetest pilot in Texas” into a sort of funny line. He drawls it, like he knows he’s being cheesy, so he’s self-deprecating about it, and he’s kind of embarrassed as well. So. Thank you, Ben Marley, for saving us from schmaltz. Not entirely, of course, because there’s only so much you can do in such a moment – but you did your best, and it comes off as a sweet kind of funny line, instead of a tarpit of saccharine from which we will never emerge.

Julie, holding a glass of champagne, makes an interminable speech where she, to quote Maureen Stapleton’s Oscar speech, thanks “everyone I have ever met in my whole life”. She thanks her parents … she thanks her sister … she thanks Coop, who takes the praise with an “Aw shucks” manner that is rather nauseating to witness … She thanks her best friend Kendra (I don’t care about Kendra) … Billie (aka Mrs. Roeper) is near tears watching all of this. Another bad choice. Everyone is near tears throughout the entire picture. STOP CRYING.

Julie thanks Scott and makes some promise about flying him to such-and-such … “so you can ride that stupid bull …” and everyone laughs, and Ben Marley is embarrassed, but grinning, too. And now I can’t get the picture of Ben Marley riding that stupid bull out of my mind, and I wish that THAT had been the plot of Skyward Christmas, as opposed to trying to make a passive-aggressive old grandpa feel welcome in his own family. I want to see Julie fly Ben to some rodeo where he can ride a stupid bull. Why can’t I see that??

Then we have the really confusing “Grandpappy made me an ornament out of smashed-up light bulbs and it sparkled like the star of Bethlehem” scene … which was gratifying only because they were, indeed, trimming the tree. But we were too confused by the presence of the little brother (did the family adopt? Where the hell did HE come from?) to really pay attention to the important plot-points. Much to our chagrin later in the film.

I’m not clear on what happens next, but I do know that there is a long shot of the street outside the school, and we can see Julie wheeling along with Scott (in his cowboy hat) sauntering along next to her. We can hear them talking. About Christmas. (rolling of the eyes from this here Scrooge). Scott is launching himself alongside Gilstrap in a way that manages to be humorous and iconic at the same time. I’m not even kidding. It reminds me of James Dean, the sort of weird nervous-ball-of-energy body language, not to mention the skinniness of him in the cowboy hat and jeans. He’s an ADD-type of guy, easily bored, and rather amused at his own personality. He’s bantering with her, “Whatdja get me for Christmas, huh?” as he leaps off a curb. Stuff like that. She banters back, “What makes you think I got you anything?” He takes off his hat, flips it around, puts it on her head for a second, flips it back into his own hand, and plops it down on his head, all as he says, “Cause I’m irresistible. You know that.”

Truer words were never spoken.

It’s a nice scene. I like how he throws himself around, swaggering, and grinning, and tipping his hat to a truck going by, and teasing her, and launching himself from curb to curb. He probably was not directed to do all of this behavioral stuff … that’s usually the actor’s talent that brings that out. It would have been just as easy to walk along beside her, chatting. But what is the interest in that? Also, it fits from what we know about his character from Skyward. He has excess energy, he talks a lot, running on his own motor, there’s an unselfconsciousness about him somehow, and he is charming and gangly.

So spaketh Sheila.

More to come …

Sneak preview of one of his darker more concerned moments:

Oh, Gilstrap, what have you gone and done ….