Tyler Perry’s Gospel of Christmas Builds Its Cast Around the Choir
Tank plays the preacher and Fantasia Barrino plays his wife in Tyler Perry’s The Gospel of Christmas, due on Netflix November 11. That pairing makes for an obvious casting headline. Read a little farther down the cast list and there is a better clue to what Perry is making. Shirley Caesar and Hezekiah Walker have named roles, as do the Clark Sisters’ Jackie, Twinkie and Dorinda. The choir is part of the story’s neighbourhood, and Perry has filled that neighbourhood with singers.
A church facing a deadline
The film puts Tank’s Isaac in charge of a struggling church in New York. Isaac and Rebecca move there with their family, and the church is at risk of foreclosure before Christmas. Netflix’s first look gives the pastor a crisis of confidence as well as a building to save. It is a family and community drama with a deadline that would still make sense outside a holiday movie. Christmas supplies the date, while the threat of foreclosure supplies the pressure.
The trailer and photographs from the production put music inside the church. That makes the ensemble worth a closer look. Caesar plays May, Walker plays Matthew and Ann Nesby plays Sarah. Jackie, Twinkie and Dorinda Clark play Susan, Aunt Pearl and Aunt Lynn respectively. Their billing is for characters in the film. Viewers should expect a scripted story with musical performances, rather than a concert assembled around celebrity cameos.
What Kirk Franklin is doing here
Perry wrote and directed the film and produced it alongside Angi Bones and Tony L. Strickland. Kirk Franklin produced the soundtrack, which Netflix describes as a mix of gospel, rap and holiday songs. The soundtrack credit and the acting credits are separate. Franklin has responsibility for the recorded music, while the people in the cast have roles in the drama itself. Netflix’s first look does not give a full track list, so the mix of styles is the confirmed detail to take away for now.
That distinction can make the film easier to place. Someone coming for Barrino or Tank will find them at the centre of Isaac and Rebecca’s story. Someone drawn by the gospel performers has a reason to watch the scenes around the couple as well. In our look at the dedication in Steel Magnolias, a detail in the credits leads back to a real family history. The credits here answer a different question: how Perry staffed a fictional church with performers who already know the music it is built around.
When it arrives
Netflix lists the film for Wednesday, November 11. Its October 16 first look already carried the trailer and the date, and the November 6 weekly preview includes the film in the coming slate. The release is the event this week. The cast announcement and first photographs came earlier.