If you are looking for a mostly bland, sitcome-esque Christmas rom com movie with a little spice, “The Family McMullen” (2025) is for you, but if you are expecting a movie that meets your expectations of an Ed Burns movie, prepare to be disappointed. The money and success got him, and he has lost the juice. It is as if Burns morphed into a soulless executive, totally did not understand what made his earlier movies worked and decided to cash in on the nostalgia of people who loved “The Brothers McMullen” (1995) and were hoping for another “The Fitzgerald Family Christmas” (2012). Set 30 years after the 1995 film, Finbar “Barry” McMullen (Burns) has two kids, is down a brother and still close with his sister-in-law, Molly (Connie Britton). Will everyone find love before the credits roll?
It was probably a mistake to start the day watching “The Fitzgerald Family Christmas” (2012) before diving into “The Brothers McMullen” to prepare for “The Family McMullen” (2025), the sequel that was unavailable to critics before release, which is not always a bad sign. What is a bad sign: HBO should have released it on streaming in time for Thanksgiving since it opens on that day though Christmas decorations are everywhere. The film had a limited theatrical release in some areas so maybe it was a factor, but if Angel Studios has better marketing, someone needs to step up their game. It was like witnessing the cinematic equivalent of witnessing a steep stock market crash. Maybe none of his films will live up to his first Christmas classic, which may be why “The Family McMullen” feels as if Burns took the characters from his 1995 film, but really wanted to make a sequel to his 2012 film. It is a fanservice film, and if that works for you, bon appetit.
“The Family McMullen” was so off putting because of how removed the entire movie felt from reality as if Burns had gone through an uncanny valley filter in terms of story line and production. It is just a case of affluenza. If he is writing what he knows, maybe it is his reality, which makes him less relatable, but should go down well with people who want fantasy more than they want to watch a Burns film at his best. Almost every location appears spacious, affluent and perfectly designed. If a laugh track started playing at the end of every joke, the dialogue would have felt less awkward since there are obvious pauses for laughter. Barry only exists in houses, evolves the banana talk from his first film into a less insightful fruit bowl parallel to family, cracks bad jokes and apparently regressed and is still a womanizer. Who is the kids’ mother? She who shall not be named also known as his second wife. The first wife is not named so maybe it is a rule.
Patrick (Michael McGlone) was actually the most interesting character in the first film, but in “The Family McMullen,” he gets reduced into a guy who just quotes the Bible, is super Catholic and absorbed Jack’s desire to keep house. His love story is baffling considering how the first movie wound up. It felt as if Burns had nothing insightful to add to Patrick’s storylines, but McGlone is a champ though the material is beneath him. Burns correctly realized that his resolution to Molly’s main conflict in “The Brothers McMullen” was not satisfying, but he over course corrected and turned Molly’s entire personality into repeatedly saying that her husband cheated on her, and she got revenge. One character actually describes Molly as a “sex crazed aunt.” Britton deserves better than this material.
“The Family McMullen” feels as if all the younger actors were given a clip compilation of Burns talking then were told to imitate his cadence. If Burns was aiming for creating a franchise kingdom so the next generation of characters/actors can populate his movies after his usual team of players, including himself, are unavailable or unable to appear, he failed. No returning to the well periodically whenever he needed a payday. While I’m not the target audience for “The Brothers McMullen,” I still admired how real most of the characters felt, and how well Burns captured the cadence of city life
None of the kids appears to have a real job. All the kids are adults, but act like teenagers; however, teenagers cannot date freely, stay out all night and hook up without courting audience judgment so Burns creative choice makes sense, but is still sloppy. Yes, adult children regress when they come home, but the suspension of disbelief required to buy these characters as credible is staggering. Barry’s son, Tommy (Pico Alexander), is in software and quits to be an actor then proceeds to spend the entire movie courting Karen (Juliana Canfield) and not ever do anything to advance his alleged career dream in the slightest. They are cute together, but it is a thin storyline and a gateway drug to Tracee Ellis Ross, who plays Karen’s mom, Nina, which is the most relatable part of the movie. If you are Burns and want your onscreen persona to snag a hottie, putting Ross on your cast sheet just makes great sense. She may be the best part of “The Family McMullen,” but in the same way that she is usually the best of anything that she appears in regardless of the surrounding quality. She deserves better roles. Can she and Thandiwe Newton collaborate on a project?
At least Tommy resembles a real young adult whereas his sister, Patty (Halston Sage), who is allegedly perfect and an attorney, seems as if she is dressed like a missionary or betraying her political leanings (though a certain famous widow would upstage her on her worst day), not a striver. Note to wardrobe: Patty’s face would be beat to the gods, more Emma Stone in “Bugonia” (2025) than Reese Witherspoon in “Election” (1999) and unable to bang out of work for almost a month without taking some sort of formal leave time. Hit: she coul have been a remote worker. Burns is so out of touch, and one day, may we all be like him. How could Burns be the same man who wrote a wide array of women in “The Fitzgerald Family Christmas” for this cheap knockoff that feels like a brand name prequel to “Sex and the City?!?”
Patty basically has a fiancé that no one in the family likes, and everyone is thrilled when the relationship falls over with a stiff breeze in the opening act. She ends up getting reacquainted with a childhood crush, Sam Dukakis (Sam Vartholomeos). Apparently, it is a common Greek surname so good job, Burns, but Patrick called, and he wants his storyline back. Burns’ age is showing because anyone with a Reddit account knows that once a relationship opens, the men’s messages are filled with tumbleweeds, and the women have a line around the block. To borrow a common phrase, dick is cheap. Also, Burns lived experience could be coloring his writing because he is happily married to supermodel Christy Turlington so it is not a dig, just a reminder that Burns is not the everyman that he may feel that he is. He is the one percent of men.
Burns did not do any favors for these young actors to launch them into stardom as he did for most of the cast from the first film. The dialogue is dreadful and filled with recaps of scenes shown only moments before in case you decided to multitask without pausing and zoned out while “The Family McMullen” kept playing, which is guaranteed. If the film has a cardinal sin, it does not honor what made the original characters memorable, and it does not make the latest characters unique. If they were not attractive, energetic and enthusiastic, they would be sauceless and blander than the food that someone eats after getting food poisoning. Putting the weight of the movie on such slight characters that no one is invested in and not the reason that people are interested in this sequel was a Herculean challenge that no one could overcome.
It is so depressing because Burns has often and fairly been compared more favorably than two other famous American filmmakers, Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, who used to be indie darlings before going Hollywood (complimentary to Affleck, always derogatory to Damon). Burns never (to my limited knowledge) sold out until now, but let’s not hate the player. Let’s hate the game. Sadly Burns seems to link himself to Richad Linklater. Oh, honey, no, don’t do that. Comparison is the thief of joy, and Burns is an undeniable talent even if this film does not reflect it. If you want to watch and enjoy it, do not watch any of Burns’ earlier movies immediately before digging in. Then you will not realize how far he has fallen. Well, at least “The Family McMullen” is not “Ella McCay” (2025). Everyone is allowed to have one bad film, but there are films that were still successful more than three decades after the original such as “Mad Max: Fury Road” (2015), “Doctor Sleep” (2019), “Top Gun: Maverick” (2022) and “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” (2024). Burns is better than this, but everyone has bills.
