Gripping story with well-crafted characters

A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

The story-telling is good with flashbacks.The film is both funny and heartbreaking. You smile in a scene and get a soulcrushing revelation in the next.

Just watched on the DVR this Fox musical special starring "American Idol" winner Carrie Underwood. The title is a bit misleading since it's not until the last fifteen minutes that anything resembling a Christmas song ("O Holy Night") is performed. Before that, there's some partly amusing/partly lame sketches involving Ms. Underwood's sister, mother, dog, and her account of how she won the contest (I did like the final segment of the latter about when she confronted host Ryan Secrest with a picture of his kidnapped dog, which he named "Simon". LOL!). The most lame was the one about Ms. Underwood's songwriting method where we see her playing several instruments (badly) at once, not helped with comments from her "manager", Carol Leifer (though her comment about Carrie being part Jewish was amusing). It's the musical performances of the star and her pairing with several guest stars like Christina Applegate and Kristen Chenoweth on a 60s girl group tribute (complete with beehive wigs and pink dresses) or Dolly Parton on "I Will Always Love You" or Brad Praisley (who's via satellite on a concert stage) on "Louisiana Woman, Mississippi Man" (by the way, way to represent the Pelican State, Woo!) that provided the highlights for me. Oh, and I also loved Dolly's solo spot when she sang "Here You Come Again", especially since I just heard that again after so many years on a recent re-airing of "American Top 40-The '70s" from December of 1977. Okay, overall this was a mostly enjoyable concert special for Ms. Underwood but once again, the title is misleading.