Holiday gift Guide: Hoax for the Holidays

Director George Mihalka’s holiday-themed dramedy Hoax for the  Holidays is an enjoyable little movie that definitely does not slap you in the face with religion. Religion is used as the plot to showcse the under lying need for closure and understanding.  We all have the need and desire to understand God, to know why things happen the way they do. christmas seems to bring out that need in us more than ever.

About Hoax for the Holidays:

Martha MacIsaac plays Casey, a rebellious teenager  who, frustrated with her life, throws a cup of coffee on the wall of the Krowne  Donuts. The resulting stain resembles an image of Jesus Christ – although Casey  had a hand in shaping its appearance- and the teenager’s life changes overnight  as she becomes the ringmaster in a growing faith circus. The Krowne Donuts parking lot is suddenly filled with new customers and news  media. Moreover, the everyone in the town seems to have been changed – including  her dad (Callum Keith Rennie), who, much like Casey herself, has lost  faith after Casey and her sister’s accident left her sister in a coma. The end results are not what Casey expcected them to be.

I was actually expecting something much more lighthearted than what I got. However it by no means a horrible movie. In fact it shows what people can, at times, really be like. I found myself crying in the end and relating to both Casey and her dad. Learning to let go and leave things in God’s hands can be a difficult task in the best of times. The biggest disappointment for me was that while the title suggest a hoax it was never made clear. You never actually see the stain and you never truly see Casey alter it in any way.

I would give Hoax for the Holidays 4 stars