Differences in tradition often clash without possibility of clarifying explanations: if I explain it to you I become condescending, if I don't I am insensitive to your needs. The movie therefore is honest in showing the uncrossable chasm between different traditions. It is easy to sugarcoat and make homogeneous in Hollywood. Let's say the director chooses to tell it as it is: without invoking the big R, no one is either bad or good, but simply used and habituated to his/her past education and customs, and unaware of how different is different, how your feeling of being misunderstood is equaled yo your misunderstanding of others. This is intellectual honesty, partially diluted by a happy ending.
Review of Christmas as Usual
