The folks out at Bridgestone Multimedia sent out a special film for us to have a look at today, and it’s especially appropriate given where we are in the calendar. It’s called Homeless For the Holidays, and it’s going to be special for a whole lot of reasons.

In Homeless For the Holidays, we join the Bakers, a family regarded as the “Christmas Crazies”, as they like to do Christmas in a big way. A good part of that is because they love Christmas, as a lot of people do, but patriarch Jack Baker likes to be the best there is at what he does. A worthy goal, sure enough, but it can go too far as Baker will discover during an unlikely encounter with a mysterious Santa Claus. Soon enough, the rising Baker star finds itself bursting into flame and collapsing following a mysterious product failure at his company. But as the bills mount and Jack finds himself jobless for an extended period, he starts to discover what’s truly important in his life. But will he wind up like the title? Or will he discover that there’s often a little extra magic this time of year?

The phrase “based on true events” is bandied around a lot, but even if this one weren’t based on a true story, it likely would be anyway, because it’s so very universal, especially these days. It’s going to hit home for a lot of people–in fact, it’s probably going to hit way too close to home for a lot of people. But this is a message that a lot of people are going to need to hear. Oh, and there’s a nice stab at the idiocy of government assistance, though it gets a little too loud and angry for the overall tone of the movie–it’s a bit out of place, but still a message in its own right with no small validity.

There’s a lot more to Christmas than lights and presents and trees and suchlike, and it’s hard times that make people realize that more so than a lot of other things. Homeless For the Holidays is a movie that will show that nicely, and frankly, should be required viewing for most anyone no matter what side of the have / have not equation they fall on. Whether it teaches you the hard lessons of hard times, or teaches you how desperately those going through those hard times need our help and compassion to get to what’s waiting on the other side of them.

It’s a Christmas movie that truly needs to be seen. It’s going to do a lot for people’s Christmas spirit, and it’s going to do it for a lot of reasons. It can be a little preachy sometimes, a little uneven in its tone (seriously, that whole food stamp scene felt so tacked on at the last minute it was like looking at half a worm in an apple), but it’s still a timely message packaged well.

The Screenhead Ten Scale gives Homeless For the Holidays an eight out of ten for being just right in a great many ways. And though it’s not without its flaws, it’ll still do an effective job of showing us–in an time in which we need it more than ever. It’s a movie that gets a lot of support from its timing, but still, the movie itself is a very solid release.