The Perfect Holiday

The Perfect Holiday is a 2007 American comedy film directed by Lance Rivera, starring Gabrielle Union, Morris Chestnut, Charlie Murphy, and Terrence Howard, and is produced by Academy Award-nominated actress Queen Latifah, who also serves as narrator.

The Perfect Holiday
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Lance Rivera
Written by	Jeff Stein Lance Rivera Marc Calixte Nat Mauldin
Produced by	Joseph P. Genier Leifur B. Dagfinnsson Marvin Peart Mike Elliott Queen Latifah Shakim Compere
Starring	Morris Chestnut Gabrielle Union Charlie Murphy Katt Williams Faizon Love Terrence Howard Queen Latifah
Cinematography	Teodoro Maniaci
Edited by	Paul Trejo
Music by	Christopher Lennertz
Production companies	Capital Arts Entertainment True North Productions Flavor Unit Entertainment
Distributed by	Yari Film Group Freestyle Releasing Destination Films[1]
Release date	December 12, 2007 (2007-12-12)
Running time	96 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$20 million[2]
Box office	$5.8 million[3]

The film was released on December 12, 2007. It was also the first film by Destination Films to receive a wide release since Beautiful.

Plot

Benjamin (Morris Chestnut) is an aspiring songwriter who attempts to break into the music business by giving a copy of his recording track of a Christmas album to a rap artist named J-Jizzy (Charles Q. Murphy). Nancy (Union) is a divorced mother, who is too busy taking care of her three children to take care of herself. Her daughter Emily (Khail Bryant) overhears her mother say that she wished for a compliment from a man, and the daughter tells the local mall's Santa Claus about her mother's wish.

The Santa Claus turns out to be Benjamin, who notices Nancy. Later, while sitting in a Starbucks after his shift as Santa, Benjamin and his friend Jamal (Faizon Love) see Nancy go into a dry cleaners. Benjamin borrows Jamal's jacket, pretends to drop it off at the cleaners, tells Nancy that she's a very attractive woman (granting her wish), and leaves. Eventually, the two start to date and end up falling in love—without Ben realizing that Nancy's ex-husband is J-Jizzy.

Things take a turn for the worse, however, because Nancy's oldest son, John-John (Malik Hammond) is jealous of Benjamin going out with his mother and plots to break up the relationship. What follows is a series of funny and touching scenes that show viewers what "family" is really about.

Queen Latifah and Terrence Howard play omniscient roles in the movie. Howard is a mischievous and sly angel named "Bah Humbug", while Latifah is the kind, thoughtful angel, called "Mrs. Christmas".

Cast

• Gabrielle Union as Nancy Taylor
• Morris Chestnut as Benjamin Armstrong
• Charlie Murphy as J-Jizzy
• Malik Hammond as John-John Taylor
• Jeremy Gumbs as Mikey Taylor
• Khail Bryant as Emily Taylor
• Faizon Love as Jamal
• Jill Marie Jones as Robin
• Katt Williams as Delicious
• Queen Latifah as Mrs. Christmas
• Rachel True as Brenda
• Terrence Howard as Bah Humbug

Reception

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 19% of 58 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 3.9/10. The website's consensus reads: "The Perfect Holiday is the perfect example of Christmas movie clichés run amok."^[4] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 32 out of 100, based on 22 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable" reviews.^[5]

On its opening weekend, it opened poorly at #6 with $2.2 million.^[6] The film grossed $5.8 million domestically.