A Lovely Story Becomes Lost in the Translation

A mother’s lingering illness and death, a family in conflict, a father’s redemption, and a blazing Yule log: keep a hankie handy and a tight grip on those tender heartstrings, because the CBS Sunday Movie, “Papa’s Angels: A Christmas Story,” starring Cynthia Nixon, Scott Bakula and Eva Marie Saint, is a weepy sea of seasonal sentiment.

Nixon’s luminous fragility as a consumptive Appalachian mom in the 1930s--light years away from her quirky “Sex and the City” persona--triumphs over bathos. A bunch of nifty banjo-strumming and country fiddling is a highlight, too. (Music is credited to Velton Ray Bunch.) Otherwise, this loose adaptation of the lovely and gentle story upon which it is based is push-your-buttons holiday fare.

In their book, authors Collin Wilcox Paxton and Gary Carden take readers through an Appalachian family’s eventual triumph over loss, using the unpretentious, eloquent “voice”--the private journal--of a young girl who is mute.

Twelve-year-old Becca writes of her close-knit family’s fragmentation, dominated by the angry, downward spiral of her music-loving father, nicknamed “Grins” for his hitherto sunny nature. With the help of their grandmother, the children use the spirit of Christmas to help Grins recover and find his way back to them.

In Bill Cain’s teleplay, directed by Dwight Little, Grins (an intense Bakula) has a back story that includes an abusive childhood. He’s been given a hard-headed dislike for book-learnin’, too, saying no to his wife’s wishes that gifted Becca (Kimberley Warnat) should go on to higher education.

Grandma (a sadly underserved Eva Marie Saint) is supposed to be the children’s wise and loving anchor, but has been diminished by the small screen too. Here, she’s meddlesome, cranky and disapproving of her daughter-in-law, until an 11th-hour clearing of the air.

Since the conflict begins before Mom’s death, it’s not the moody Grins’ subsequent anger that seems much out of character, it’s his Christmas redemption.

No, a book-based film doesn’t have to be page-by-page identical with its source. But because the book, helpfully sent to the reviewer along with the screening tape, was such a pleasure to read, it’s difficult not to compare them. For genuine feeling, the film falls short.

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* “Papa’s Angels” airs Sunday at 9 p.m. on CBS. The network has rated it TV-PG (may be unsuitable for young children).