Family dysfunction. Rekindled romance. Kwanza.
Grandma and mom aren't getting along. Mom wants to leave town to start on her own. They stand next to each other all day yet don't communicate. Granddaughter wants to fix it.
Ella left Griffin behind two years ago. She is home for the holidays and they reconnect. As in so many stories like this, they get thrown together to work on the festival. This goes about like you'd expect, but obviously it shares screen time with the other plotlines so I won't talk about chemistry.
I knew nothing about Kwanza. I looked it up on Wikipedia. What I found about the origins of Kwanza is more radical than what's portrayed here, or maybe it's better to say that what appears in this movie is sanitized some from the origins. I like how it's done here because it stresses a celebration of ethnicity as opposed to racial separation which is how Wikipedia portrays the origins. The 7 principles are briefly named and described. The different days of the celebration are touched on.
The acting is good. There isn't a lot of comedy but the dialogue is good. Instead of natural scenery of a famous location we get to see the costumes and festivities of Kwanza.
I'm not familiar with Lyndie Greenwood but she does a good job and makes an appealing Ella.
