The ensemble of Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point (IFC Films)

In a Long Island town, the boisterous Italian-American Balsano family gathers for what may be their final Christmas Eve dinner in the suburban ancestral home. Everything is in place: excited young children; bored and wandering teenagers; and adults who tease, then squabble; all in a home overstuffed with decorations, presents, people, food, and drink.

Director Tyler Taormina reveals the celebrations in all their hyperreal glory as Carson Lund’s camera pans over the huge tree hung with ornaments—both seasonally sappy and intimately personal (photos of family members)—or lingers over the Christmas train set built around an enormous holiday village, the train going around the track with nobody paying it any attention.

In fact, Taormina’s film will resonate with anyone who has spent time with large families during the holidays. When the elderly matriarch, Isabelle (JoJo Cincinnati), says grace before the huge meal, she makes sure to mention every relative who is no longer around to celebrate, before anyone can dig in. A quick shot of the dessert table highlights the almond-flavored rainbow cookies front and center. (My Italian-American wife, who grew up loving those cookies, laughed and nodded in recognition.) Later, youngsters in their sleeping bags force their eyes open with their fingers as one of them yells, “We have to stay awake for Santa!”

Yet, despite such authentic holiday atmosphere (thanks to Paris Peterson’s spot-on production design), Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point—shot in Smithtown, Long Island, where Taormina and co-writer Eric Berger are both from—is spread across an unwieldy canvas that undercuts its characters’ relationships and stories. The focus jumps between various groupings once everyone arrives—like teen cousins Emily (Matilda Fleming) and Frankie (Delancey Shapiro), who leave to meet up with friends—but these shifts rarely yield anything substantial, either dramatically or comedically. Even a pivotal sequence where Isabelle’s four adult children, including Kathleen (Maria Dizzia, who delivers the most authentic performance here), discuss what to do with their elderly mother and face the reality that she may no longer be able to stay in the house, consists of routine jokes and insults traded among the siblings.

Seemingly in another movie are Sgt. Brooks (Glenn Turkington) and Officer Gibson (Michael Cera), local cops sitting in their patrol car looking for speeders, yet they are nowhere to be found when Emily, Frankie, and several friends crowd into a vehicle and race down the road. There’s a nice local touch as the drive-through store Dairy Barn serves as the location where the cops accost a few adult ne’er-do-wells bothering the teens, but the scene itself is dramatically inert.

Credit goes to Taormina for opting not to use the usual holiday tunes. Instead, he fills the soundtrack with 1950s and ’60s classics like Peggy March’s “Wind-Up Doll,” Frank Sinatra’s “Garden in the Rain,” and the Ronettes’ “Baby, I Love You,” which plays over the end credits. The most memorable scene comes when seemingly the entire neighborhood stands on the curb waiting for Santa’s arrival. When he finally appears, perched on top of a fire truck in a parade while firemen throw candy to the locals, Taormina turns it into a moment that’s pleasingly faux-Fellini: the slow motion, streaking truck lights, incessant honking, and close-up shots of screaming and beaming faces all transform an annual tradition into something otherworldly. For a brief moment, the movie captures true holiday magic.