The Vietnamese family runs a video store. Grandma Nguyen (Kieu Chinh) is of course less assimilated than her family, but in the kitchen her eye misses nothing and her strong opinions are enforced almost telepathically. There’s trouble because a younger sister has found a gun in her brother’s room. Joan Chen plays the mother, a peacemaker in a family with a father who rules too sternly.
The Latino Thanksgiving starts uneasily when the kids are at the supermarket and run into their dad (Victor Rivers), who is separated from their mom (Mercedes Ruehl). They invite him to dinner without asking her; on the other hand, she hasn’t told them she has invited her new boyfriend, a teacher.
The Jewish couple (Lainie Kazan and Maury Chaykin) greet their daughter (Kyra Sedgwick), her lover (Julianna Margulies), and Aunt Bea (Estelle Harris), one of those women who asks such tactless questions that you can’t believe she’s doing it by accident. The parents accept their daughter’s lesbianism, but are at a loss to explain it (should they have sent her to that kibbutz?).
During this long day secrets will be revealed, hearts will be bared, old grudges settled, new ones started, pregnancies announced, forgiveness granted, and turkeys carved. And the melting pot will simmer a little, for example when a Latino girl brings home her Asian boyfriend (her brother tries to make him feel at home with a hearty conversation about Jackie Chan and Bruce Lee). If the Asian boy feels awkward at his girlfriend’s table, he reflects that she is not welcome at all in his family’s home. Or is she?
All that I’ve said reflects the design of the film. I’ve hardly even started to suggest the texture and pleasure. There are so many characters, so vividly drawn, with such humor and life, that a synopsis is impossible. What’s strange is the spell the movie weaves. By its end, there is actually a sort of tingle of pleasure in seeing how this Thanksgiving ends, and how its stories are resolved. In recent years most Thanksgiving movies have been about families at war. Here are four families that have, in one way or another, started peace talks.