It’s been more than a month since Christmas, but they were sending around an indie film called “Saint Nick of Bethlehem” for reviews. Maybe because it would have been lost amid the hundreds of low budget holiday movies that have been flooding screens from Halloween to New Year’s.
At any rate, this one stars Daniel Roebuck, who was also its co-writer and -director. He’s a familiar face and affable character actor from “The Fugitive” and the old “Matlock” who was also born in the Lehigh Valley town for which this film almost serves as a travelogue.
Here he plays a down-on-his-luck former high school teacher still trying to come to terms with the fact his wife left him years earlier and his teenage son died in a car accident. He not only kept his son’s room the same a decade later, he still talks to him there every night.
This all happens in his mother’s house which kind of throws you at first because she’s played by Cathy Moriarty, the Oscar-nominated actress from “The Raging Bull” who is older now, yes, but only three years older than Roebuck. The first time you see them together, buying Christmas decorations, you’d assume they’re a couple. But no.
His brother, a mean old sod who runs the family used car lot — portrayed by Duane Whitaker, once the pawn shop owner in “Pulp Fiction” — finally lets him work there on commission. Everybody’s rooting for Roebuck’s Nick, who has a big white beard, usually wears red and already looks like Santa.
And he’s starting to date an old high school flame who is back in town. She’s played by Marsha Dietlein, who was Lucy in “Return of the Living Dead II” in 1988 and who worked with Roebuck previously in “Love Hurts,” also from 1988 (so a photo from that era pops up in this film).
But they’re getting together is not the point of the film, as it would be in almost all of the other Christmas rom coms. It’s his getting over his son’s death, which he finally does when a young acquaintance in town loses his dad. It’s a nice emotional payoff to a gentle movie which is peppered with all manner of local Bethlehem shoutouts — to favorite ice cream shops, the big holiday light display at the lake and a place specializing in the Eastern European confection, the Kiffle.
Public domain Christmas songs chime in as scenes change and the film builds to a strange one-float parade down main street involving a very specific red and white vintage pickup truck.
Though the film is directed by someone associated with a lot of faith-based films, Jesus hardly comes up here, though some scenes are set in a church and Nick’s best friend is a pastor named Jimbo (Timothy E. Goodwin).
It’s all inspired by a Bethlehem man who found his own redemption through being a local Santa Claus, Allen Smith. The film is dedicated to his late son, Garrett. So the narrative’s turns may be attributed to how closely it follows that story. But it’s a nice enough story, yet one that might not be quite memorable enough to look up by the time Christmas rolls around again (but wouldn’t be bad if you did).