By Estefa Aburto

Of all North American countries, Mexico is the only one that doesn’t celebrate Thanksgiving. So I, a Mexican, couldn’t understand what the fuss was about. It wasn’t until I came to the United States six years ago that I got invited to several turkey gatherings and, yes, so far it’s been delicious and entertaining. Every November now I eagerly wait to indulge myself with the scrumptious bird and feel grateful for my little family and friends, old and new. But what’s more important, I found, is the movies you watch after getting stuffed with the company of your loved ones.

I still wondered, however, what film genre is the most fitting to watch in the time frame between Thanksgiving dinner and New Year’s Eve? After some trial and error, I realized it’s less about the genre than the narrative. There are two principal types of holiday film narratives: The unification of blood relations and the combination of people that act as more of a family to each other than their own families do. Certainly, films of the latter type are often the more memorable ones. In the horror comedy Gremlins (1984), an otherworldly creature and a teenager develop a bond during Christmas time as they battle against evil dwarfish creatures destroying their small town. In the boxing drama Rocky (1976), the amateur athlete Rocky relies on his coach, girlfriend, and best friend to succeed in a fight against the mighty professional boxer Apollo Creed on New Year’s Day, and finally, the coming-of-age film Scent of a Woman (1992), in which a suicidal blind veteran regains his will to live with the help of a schoolboy who takes a caretaker job during fall break. These three stories all revolve around the moving idea of strangers becoming family. As much as I love these movies, this formula has become repetitive and predictable. It was about time that somebody switched things up for post Thanksgiving dinner fun.

On November 27th, Netflix premiered Martin Scorsese’s latest film, The Irishman. Like Scorsese’s past work, it’s inspired by his Italian-American heritage and viva voce mafia stories, working from the book I Heard You Paint Houses by Charles Brandt. Why should you add this title to your watchlist? Because it distills the meaning of family into a complex, singularly Italian-American story.

Watching The Irishman, I noticed four essential elements that are worth appreciating in depth. First, the narrative is not one, but three narratives nested inside one another like a Russian doll. Second, cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto works with de-aging technology in an attempt to digitally rejuvenate the actors. Third, the emotive performance from Al Pacino, and the muted performances from Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci. Finally, this is a gruesome holiday movie, as Scorsese’s reflections upon family disintegration, loneliness, and death accumlilate in the three storylines.

The opening scene (I’ll call it the first storyline) begins with a long take that moves through the hallways of a retirement home where elderly Frank “The Irishman” Sheeran (Robert De Niro) lives. “In the Still of the Night” plays, creating the mood of a serene enviroment; the type of space where you can rest after living a gutsy life. Although Frank is in the company of other elderly people, it’s impossible to not notice his loneliness. While looking aimlessly ahead, Frank sits in a wheelchair with a cane resting on his right lap. Then he starts a monologue, as if talking to himself, explaining his days working as a house painter (hitman) for the powerful Bufalino family, led by the reserved Russell Bufalino (Joe Pesci). From the retirement home, old Frank narrates the trip to Russell’s niece’s wedding in Detroit in the company of their respective wives, Irene and Carrie.

The second storyline starts on a close-up of the niece’s wedding invitation. Old Frank admits that, as a gangster, he took care of dirty jobs like collecting money or intimidating Bufalino’s debtors. What I enjoyed about this opening sequence is that, in order to link both storylines seamlessly, the editing relies on cross-cutting. Usually, film editors use cross-cutting to portray two or more events happening at the same time in different locations. However, this sequence succeeds at linking two events from different times and different locations, creating the sense of memory in a visual way. For example, in the second storyline, Frank and Russell pull over on the side of the highway. They see a Texaco gas station and the third storyline fades in with the memory of when they first met.

I had mixed feelings about the de-aging effects in this part, the earliest storyline. It’s noticeable right away that the wrinkles on De Niro’s have been airbrushed. The effect is eerie and unconvincing, like a video game character. Maybe CGI needs to be further developed to create organic texture on people’s faces. De Niro’s brown eyes have also been bizarrely changed into blue eyes. Looking at Frank’s younger face, my reaction to the effects was similar to Anthony Lane’s, as described in the New Yorker: “Such tricks are both dazzling and creepy, and in stressing facial change, they tend to neglect the other, no less telling ways in which we are gradually transformed. When Frank, supposedly still limber and youthful, clambers over rocks to a shoreline, where he can toss away used firearms, his motions betray the tentative and unmistakable stiffness of an older man. Reboot his features all you like; the body does not lie.”

As for the other actors, Al Pacino heightens the movie. As Hoffa, Pacino is warm and empathetic toward Frank, but he’s also naive and proud, which is ultimately what leads to his demise. Joe Pesci as Russell Bufalino made me feel a rollercoaster of emotions. He’s a stone-cold man who can’t stand being disrespected. The interplay between these three main actors seemed organic and they all have chemistry. Pay attention to the scene at Frank’s union award gala, which exemplifies both the tension and fraternity between the three of them. Russell gives Frank a ring and says, “nobody can fuck with you.” They stare into each other's eyes. They’ve become brothers. But this new family come at the cost of his old one: through Frank’s unconditional loyalty to Russell, he commits unthinkable acts that drive his family away, especially his daughter Peggy. At the end of his life, which is the setting of the final storyline as well as the first, Frank is alone during the holidays, with nobody to visit him except the FBI, who want to question him about Russell and the mafia. Frank chose Russell over anyone else. Russell became his family and I can only think that, by the end of the movie, he deeply regrets that decision. He never says so, but his blue eyes betray him.