BLACK NATIVITY | FAMILY MOVIE REVIEW INFORMATION FOR PARENTS AND KIDS

"BLACK NATIVITY"
(2013) (Jacob Latimore, Forest Whitaker) (PG)

QUICK TAKE:: Drama/Musical: A Baltimore teen goes to stay with his Harlem grandparents who he's never met, all while trying to figure out how to get $5,000 to save his mom's home.

PLOT:

Langston (JACOB LATIMORE) is a 15-year-old boy who lives in Baltimore with his single mom, Naima (JENNIFER HUDSON), who's trying to make ends meet. Without the $5,000 needed to pay the bills, the two of them end up evicted. With no other option, she sends Langston to stay with her long-estranged parents, the Reverend Cornell (FOREST WHITAKER) and Aretha Cobbs (ANGELA BASSETT) in Harlem, despite them having never met the boy who doesn't want to leave his mom.

She nevertheless puts him on the bus, and immediately upon arriving in New York his bag is stolen, he can't find his grandparents, and he ends up wrongly accused of stealing a man's wallet. Those charges are dropped, but while briefly in the lockup he meets Tyson (TYRESE GIBSON), an adult man who challenges the boy before he's released into the custody of Cornell.

He's a proud man who once marched with Martin Luther King, Jr. and has a handsome pocket watch as his engraved memento from those days. He also treats a homeless couple, JoJo (LUKE JAMES) and his pregnant girlfriend or wife, Maria (GRACE GIBSON), with respect, but is tougher on his grandson, unlike Aretha who takes a gentler approach.

Desperate to figure out how to get the $5,000 his mom owes, Langston comes up with several impromptu ideas that eventually reveal things he wasn't expecting about himself, his mom, and the father he's never met.

WILL KIDS WANT TO SEE IT?: Since it features a teen in the lead, some might be intrigued, as might those who are fans of musicals and/or anyone in the cast.

WHY THE MPAA RATED IT: PG: For thematic material, language and a menacing situation.

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