Charles Poekel's feature-length directorial debut, "Christmas, Again," is practically whispercore, full of blinky Christmas lights and the sort of weird quiet that descends on the streets of New York City in the middle of a December night. Noel (Kentucker Audley) travels down to the city every year from upstate New York to sell Christmas trees to locals, and as we gather from the people who greet him with some familiarity, he used to come with a girlfriend who's no longer around.
For the most part, Noel keeps this sadness to himself; he works the night shift and sleeps during the day in a trailer parked next to the trees, and bickers with the folks who work the day shift. He occasionally goes for a swim and a shower at the local Y. And, maybe most importantly, he carefully pries one pill out of an Advent calendar every night. His interactions with other humans are generally pretty empty until one night he finds a beautiful young woman passed out drunk on a park bench....
