"The Gift You Forgot To Open"

"The Gift You Forgot To Open" is a movie centered around 4 families who are all friends and Willie, a homeless man. They all come together for Christmas and their holiday shopping ritual. It is clearly evident when the movie opens that each family has had its share of financial and personal issues as well as some rather dark secrets over the year leading up to the Christmas Season.

Melvin and Joanne's home is the meeting place for the Holiday activities and dinner. Just before the guests start arriving, Sylvania, Joanne's sister who lives with her, finds out that she's being "evicted" and in her mind, unjustly so This causes a riff between the sisters that only deepens. the long harbored resentments held by both.

As each of the guests arrive, they all come bearing less than holiday cheer as their differences, arguments and ongoing bickering precedes them through the front door. Children resent their parents, parents are disappointed in their children, wives secretly begrudging their husbands and husbands just wanting to get away from it all set the tone for the Season.

As everyone leaves the home to get away from it all and each other for awhile, their activities are interrupted by a startling text message that brings them all back to the house together. Panic and fear grips them and each family member is only concerned with the well being of their friends and loved ones.

The ending is loaded with messages of the importance of family, love, forgiveness and the one gift, that we should never forget to open. And although you don't see much of Willie throughout the movie, he is core to the much needed redemption of the other characters.

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