Spending Thanksgiving With the Moretti’s (2016)

Directed by Rodney Cherry

Viewed on Amazon Prime

 

Okay. We’ve had turkey monsters. Family adventures adjacent to thanksgiving. Time to stop beating around the bush and give you what we’ve all been waiting for. An honest to god Thanksgiving dinner movie. And it’s one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen. I know that’s a big statement. It’s definitely the worst Thanksgiving movie I’ve ever seen, not that that’s a huge list, but also it has what is probably the worst moral that a movie has ever tried to push on me. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg, we want to examine every aspect of this movie’s failure so please join me while I carve everyone a big slice of Spending Thanksgiving with the Moretti’s.

My Continued Amazement.
So what’s wrong with this movie? Would it be unbelievable if I said everything? Because that’s the truth of this matter, this is a movie that has done every single thing wrong, so much so that I started questioning my own sanity while I watched it. Mistake after mistake after mistake piled up and I wondered how someone could not realize that all these things were wrong and not try to fix them. How could they not realize that even the title card is wrong? Moretti’s is possessive, not plural. Having dinner with the Moretti family should be spelled Spending Thanksgiving With The Morettis. They couldn’t even get the TITLE right.

 

Is ‘Worst Movie Ever’ An Overused Insult? Yes, But I Stand By It.

“Worst movie I’ve ever seen” is a pretty bold claim, but I think it would be difficult to label this movie anything but rage-inducingly bad. Just a brief rundown of the issues with this movie: Every scene feels like they only did one take, all the actors are CONSTANTLY flubbing their lines or trailing off or just seem to forget what it is they’re supposed to be saying, but it’s all left in! And it doesn’t feel like it’s supposed to be stream of consciousness dialogue, they clearly have lines, but the lines are so awkward and stilted it seems that the actors can barely remember them! The sound design makes me want to jump off a building. Everything is either too quiet or too loud, you can hear the onboard motor of one of the cameras whenever that particular camera is used, not that you’d even want to hear any of this dialogue, because the people in this movie are some of the most vile characters I’ve ever witnessed in film. Sure, they aren’t as bad as some of these movie villains I’ve talked about before, no one gets murdered or anything, but the kind of nasty hate-filled speeches that these degenerates spew at each other is a kind of evil that everyone is far more familiar with.

 

Our Shameful Thanksgiving Tale Begins.

Maybe that was too much all at once. Let me explain what the “plot” of this movie is. Two families, the Johnsons and the Morettis, get together for their annual Thanksgiving traditions while trying to deal with the loss of both families’ grandmothers. Our story begins with Brenda, the person who is apparently in charge of preparing the entire Thanksgiving meal herself, as she is making all the food completely alone and chugging wine to keep her inner demons at day.

 

This wasn’t planned, the actress needed a drink after reading the script.

 

Shortly after this wine chugging, a young woman, Lisa, enters the house and tries to help, complaining about her lot in life so loudly and continuously that it is unclear whether or not she is supposed to be serious. According to this girl, everyone at school hates her, even the staff, including the cafeteria and janitorial workers, and she pretty much just wishes she was dead. Brenda’s response to this? “In this family, rejection is the norm.” A little heavy and defeatist there, huh Brenda? This pity party is interrupted by the arrival of Bridget, a monster in the shape of a human being. Bridget walks in, complains about how busy supermarkets are, on THANKSGIVING DAY, belittles Lisa to her face and insults Brenda because Brenda is the head of some company’s board that we know nothing about. I’m really underselling Bridget here because she goes on a lengthy tirade about how terrible the Moretti family is and how they’re all losers and nothing ever goes right for them. It is surreal.

 

The Thanksgiving Experience In One Photo. Everyone Silently Praying For Death.

 

The Curious Case of the Disappearing Grandmas.

To shift gears for a moment, Lisa mentions that how sad it is that Grandma Moretti and Grandma Johnson both died between last Thanksgiving and this Thanksgiving. It is pretty sad, but then Lisa says how weird it is that neither of their bodies have been found. This raises so many questions. Were they together when they died? How did they die? How long did the search go on? Have they ever disappeared before only to swoop in and save the day at the last minute? We don’t get any answers to those questions, but I will give you an answer to one question, does this ever come up again? Spoilers, NO. THERE IS NO PAYOFF FOR THAT LINE. Lisa just says it and then it is never brought up again.

 

Mighty suspicious to bring up Grandma’s death, Lisa. You hiding something?

 

Time To Meet Another Horrible Person!

We mercifully cut to another scene only to meet another pair of people we really don’t want to meet. Other members of the Moretti family, Linda and her husband, Frank, are discussing a bejeweled anklet that Frank is buying for his boss, for some reason. Or rather, Linda is talking about it while Frank stares at a wall.

 

No, I wasn’t kidding. Frank stares at a wall, most likely contemplating murder.

 

Frank bemoans why he’s buying something for someone he hates, which is a good point, why is he buying this for someone he hates? Doesn’t matter, it never gets followed up on. What does matter is that when Frank talks to Linda he spews some of the most vile, racist (Linda is black) and inaccurate insults I have ever heard. He calls Linda an alcoholic, though we never see her drink during the film, he calls her family “hood rats” who are either in jail, dead, or selling crack, and he calls Linda a dirty alley cat that he picked up off the street and decided to marry. Frank is pretty much what would happen if Birth of A Nation were transmogrified into a person. Sure, Linda throws a few insults back at him, but her game is weak and her insults are lame. Then they have really unappealing sex.

 

Go on, Linda. Keep talking about how the Morettis are frauds. That’ll show him.

 

This Moretti Terribleness Must Run In The Genes.

And no, this “banter” is not a thing they do between them as a joke. Frank talks to EVERY black person in the movie like this. To say it is uncomfortable is a MASSIVE understatement. But we’re not done meeting awful people yet! Awful Morettis keep on coming! Somewhere in a car we meet Benny Moretti and his fiancee, Amiee (not a misspelling) who get into an argument because, after losing forty pounds, Benny is now sneaking junk food! No, we never see this guy when he was fat, we never learn of any health issues he had/has or if such issues run in his family. Amiee is so obsessed with his weight that she throws her engagement ring at him and declares that they will break up if he eats any more junk food, saying that the cookies he ate are the equivalent of putting a shotgun in his mouth.

 

Reasonable reaction. I wouldn’t want to marry this guy either, but for other reasons.

 

In case you were curious, this scene goes on for minutes and the same audio and visual issues that plagued the earlier scenes plague this scene. But the cool thing is that we learn Benny is a ventriloquist, because his lines keep playing after he clearly closes his mouth in one scene. Also we learn that Benny is a child who blames Joshua for everything that has gone wrong in his life. This is a less than appealing couple.

 

The Sad Story of Cousin Brett.

Enough with these horrible people, time to meet someone who just depresses me, Cousin Brett. Brett is a recovering drug addict who’s been homeless for months and is the black sheep of the family. We meet Brett and two of his friends during a meeting they have with a priest, Father O’Malley, natch, who explains that there is no more room at the homeless shelter so they have to find somewhere else to go. One of Brett’s friends just leaves, this latest betrayal just being too much for him, while the priest decides it is time for Brett to return home and buys him a bus ticket. Brett’s other friend, rightfully annoyed that this priest is interested in helping Brett but not her, brings this up, only to be given a, presumably unscratched, scratch off lottery ticket. It is a bizarre sequence made even worse by the sudden drop in visual quality at one point.

 

These people are so poor they can’t afford anymore pixels.

 

The Confusing Story of Joshua and Betty.

The miserable character countdown isn’t over yet because now we’re meeting Joshua and Betty Johnson, who are preparing for a phone interview with a local radio station, while in their car. This interview goes very poorly as Joshua is presented with evidence that his business discriminates against black people in their hiring process and alleges that Joshua has forgotten where he’s come from. Man, this ‘Gotcha’ Journalism culture is getting worse and worse, always trying to keep a hard working businessman down. After quickly, but not quickly enough, bailing out of the interview, Joshua and Betty realize that their car has broken down *dun dun duuuuuun* IN THE HOOD. Wait, why were they in the hood? They automatically assume other black people are criminals so…why park there?  Things get even weirder when their cousin shows up out of nowhere to fix their car and talk about how bad gentrification is.

 

Also he is referred to as Joshua’s ‘first but distant cousin’. Whatever that means.

 

More Useless Characters AND THE BIG GAME.

Now that almost everyone has been established, it’s time to get back to the family home just in time to meet more people! Don’t worry, I won’t burden you with their descriptions, they don’t matter in any way to the story. Everyone meets up and has really awkward stilted dialogue and also everyone insults everyone to their face because the writer thought that’s how families speak to each other. Enough of this dialogue though, time to get to the football game! The annual game! Everyone knows about the Thanksgiving game! What, you haven’t heard about this game??? Don’t worry, I’ll explain. It’s a tackle football game with no padding or helmets where fifteen HUNDRED dollars are on the line. Why on Earth would a ‘friendly’ game have such high stakes? Why would the Morettis keep playing if they haven’t won this game in SEVEN YEARS? Sadly, there are much more pressing questions here.

 

No, not questions like, why does this football subplot take up twenty minutes of screentime, moreso questions like, what have I ever done to deserve watching this sequence? Not about the football game, but about a flashback had by Cousin Junie, who helped Joshua out earlier. He reminisces about a Thanksgiving of years past when, after winning the game, Junie was propositioned for sex by two of the Moretti women. In exchange they wanted his share of the football game winnings. Now there’s no sex scene here, it was obvious from the first ten seconds in to the sequence that the Morettis plan is to steal the money and rush out while Junie is in the bathroom, but that’s not the issue. The issue is that this scene takes THREE FULL MINUTES to play out in its entirety and having watched this, I don’t think I will ever feel clean again. This subplot serves no purpose except to establish that Junie finds the Moretti women attractive, which was done earlier with an offhand line of dialogue! There was no point to this horrific sequence (which includes the two Moretti women kissing in order to sweeten the deal and add incest to the list of things this fine Holiday feature has) that left me dead inside.

 

I can feel the filth through my TV screen.

 

Oh, The Big Game Ended Exactly How We Knew It Would. Good.

Spoiler alert: the Johnsons win the football game again and everyone, except most of the Johnson family, make their way back to the Moretti stronghold for more banter, alcohol, and racism. That wasn’t a joke, the horribly racist Frank, another uncle that I haven’t discussed because he has no purpose in the story, and Joshua all have a discussion on the merits of black people vs. the merits of white people. It’s a surprisingly culturally sensitive discussion where we learn that Frank’s views, though misguided, were able to be changed by having positive and open dialogue with members of the black community…just kidding, he’s still a horrible racist and I hope he gets hit by a truck. What’s really strange is that it looks like Joshua is smoking either an unlit cigar or a vape cigar. Not sure which of those is worse.

 

These are two guys I definitely want to have a conversation about race relations with.

 

Is It Time For The Dinner Yet?

At this point we are over an hour into the movie and there has been no Thanksgiving dinner, but don’t worry, it’s coming! We’re finally getting to the Thanksgiving dinner and…it’s over in a montage. All that’s left on the table is a plate of ham that no one wanted. And even though everyone was remarking, read insulting, Brenda about the quality of her food, no one seems to have had any complaints. Unless of course that ham was the lone course and no one ate any of it. We never really figure that out and that’s for the best. Established awfulness of everyone at the table continues, but is soon interrupted by a now quite drunk Joshua who, disgusted by the family’s dysfunction, reveals every horrible secret he knows, setting off a chain of events that has nearly every Moretti reveal what terrible, underhanded, disgusting things they’ve all done to their family members.

 

In Vino Veritas.

 

THE MANY SINS OF THE MORETTIS

I’m not joking, it is revealed that Brenda forged their grandmother’s will (I think?), has been devaluing the company in order to sell it off (which makes no sense), paid off Lisa to steal Bridget’s laptop (for some reason), and then when she is caught out, Brenda outs Lisa as a lesbian (for no reason) and reveals that everyone else has been doing bad shit. Oh also, she’s having an affair with Joshua who is her business partner (I think?). Well, she’s not married and Joshua is so technically he’s having an affair with her, but that’s never how it’s phrased. The Moretti men are so enraged at the idea of a Moretti woman having sexual relations with a black person that they beat up Joshua…in the worst action sequence I have ever seen.

 

The truth will get you beat.

 

But Don’t Worry, Jesus Saves The Day!

Everyone’s mad at each other, no one is having a good Thanksgiving, and the older family members leave, disgusted that they weren’t in on this scam. At this point I though the movie was just over but no, it is time for the real reason we’re here. Time for religious aunt (whose sin was that after her daughter moved out she put down her cat instead of caring for it) to tell everyone about the wonders of Jesus and how they should all forgive each other for the nightmares they put each other through. AND THEN THEY DO. What a great moral, that even if someone wrecks your credit, kills your cat, and sabotages your life, you still have to love them because FAMILY. This is the least genuine ending I think I’ve ever seen a movie try to pull out of its ass. Thankfully the movie ends right after this, giving us a brief few moments of peace before something happens that I thought was impossible. We see the credits page. And it looks like this.

 

Why would anyone think this is okay?

 

And yes, that’s how it looked, bad cropping, multiple typos and all. The director thought this was an acceptable way to end this movie.

 

This Movie Hurt Me In Ways I Didn’t Think I Could Be Hurt.

I gotta say, this was one of the most painful experiences of my movie watching career. I know this review is going a little long but, honestly I could write something three times longer if I tried detailing every horrible moment in this movie, every mistake, every stupid decision that goes nowhere or makes the movie worse. I can’t get across just how unpleasant of a movie this is to watch, how long the scenes go, how awful all the performances are, how stilted all the dialogue is, and how thoughtless all the plot points are. Any attempt at analyzing this movie would make your head explode and that is not an exaggeration. Usually when I review movies in this long form style I have to play back certain parts of the movie so I can remember bits and keep the plot structure in my head. Not for this movie. I watched it more than a week ago and I remember every word, every shot, they’ve all just been burned into my head and I fear I will never forget them. If you want to see what is quite possibly the worst movie ever, by all means watch this film, but for context I will share my thoughts about a review I read of this movie. The title of the review was, “Like Birdemic But Without The Birds,” and my first thought was, “Birdemic is a better movie than this.” You have been warned. Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!