The Family Channel (Fri., Dec. 3, 8 p.m. ET)
C+
Alyssa Milano (Who's the Boss?) plays a spoiled American who goes at Christmas to visit her family homeland, Estonia, shortly before it achieves independence from Soviet rule. At first she's asking dumb questions—"Why can't we lake the elevator?" and "Do you have Estee Lauder?" But soon she's in the thick of a political ferment. Okay, she's, like, got a crush on this hot, poetic-looking hunk in the liberation movement.
Chad Lowe, as said radical, affects a Leninesque guise with facial hair and prole cap. He ends up looking more like John Denver, though. And Maximilian Schell, in addition to directing the film, plays a Soviet commandant.
Schell has fashioned an often handsome film but one whose swollen, clunky plot will not help find it many viewers this side of Tallinn. Estonia's major city (who said TV isn't educational?).
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