2007. United States. 96 mins. (Tearful, Slice Of Life-ish, Soulful)

In the list of Christmas movies, few end badly. The most popular ever, It’s a Wonderful Life, manages to pull joy from despair in the last reel. But Where God Left His Shoes doesn’t have an uncle Billy to arrive with a basket of money and save the day.

Frank (John Leguizamo) is a down on his luck boxer who finds himself homeless along with his wife and two children. Together they range through a gulag of homeless shelters and welfare centers across New York City while Frank hunts for the elusive job that will qualify his family for subsidized housing. Angela (Leonor Varepa) is his long enduring wife who tries to manage the two kids and bed them down among bums and crazies in bed bugged dormitories.

How do you teach your son values when the world around you has ceased to value you? What do you do when there is no place to sleep? How can you make your pleas heard in a system where everyone else is pleading too?
Frank tells son Justin (David Castro) they are the forgotten. The title refers to the fact that they have been forsaken even by God. He does not dwell in the places they do. You won’t find him leaving his shoes there when he beds down for the night.

This is not a perfect film, and critics have torn it apart for plot problems. The lack of a happy ending also goes against the traditional Christmas movie. We don’t want to be depressed on Christmas any more than we wanted to be depressed on Thanksgiving when Edward R. Murrow presented Harvest of Shame on CBS network, on Thanksgiving weekend 1960.

The Murrow doc followed migrant field workers toiling in the land of plenty and suffering poverty and hopelessness. Like Where God Left His Shoes, Harvest of Shame tried to raise a little indigestion in the stomachs of a nation filled with turkey and stuffing.

The effect of both films has been limited. Harvest of Shame got all the awards but nothing changed for the migrants. Where God Left His Shoes was slammed by the critics, seen by few, and never credited for social issues it raised and the people it profiled.

But its story and subject deserve greater attention. This is also one of the small but growing list of films about the outer boroughs of New York City. Far from the LED lights of Times Square, this is the New York where most of the City’s 20 million people actually live (see also Paraiso Travel on MovieWithMe.com).