Whether you like it or not, you’re intimately familiar with the various episodes of A Christmas Story’s plot. The shattered leg lamp. The bitter disappointment of the decoder ring message. The tongue stuck to the lamp post. And yet… can you truly claim to be able to assemble all of these vignettes in chronological order? I certainly can’t. The film is like a vague memory—a hazily-recollected dream that repeats ad infinitum in a perfect cycle akin to Groundhog Day.
So let’s pursue that premise to its logical conclusion: utilizing state-of-the-art CGI, motion capture, and deepfake technology, we’ll highjack Ted Turner’s annual Holiday marathon. The first two or three “iterations” will air unaltered, lulling viewers into a false sense of security. Gradually, however, Ralphie will realize that he’s been trapped in a time loop for nearly a century. Desperate to escape the gauzy, sentimental, nostalgic nightmare of the “good old days” (which never actually existed), Ralphie uses the knowledge and skills that he acquires prior to each "reset" to his advantage, diverging from the predetermined narrative structure in order to finally shatter the chains tethering him to his past.
Will our hero break free from An Endless Christmas Story? Find out in the 24-hour long TV movie event that IndieWire calls “[…] a stunning return to form for Robert Zemeckis!”