Edward Burns' 11th film as a writer-director, "The Fitzgerald Family Christmas," is also a reunion for the Long Island native. For the first time in 16 years, Burns and actor Michael McGlone share the screen, playing combative brothers just as they did in Burns' first two efforts, "The Brothers McMullen" and "She's The One."
Available via on demand services starting on Nov. 21 -- and due in theaters on Dec. 7 -- "The Fitzgerald Family Christmas" focuses on an Irish-American family on Long Island, dealing with the return of its estranged patriarch during the holiday season. Burns and McGlone star opposite an array of character actors -- Kerry Bishe, Heather Burns, Caitlin Fitzgerald, Marsha Dietlein, Noah Emmerich, Brian James D'Arcy, Daniella Pineda, Ed Lauter -- as well as Connie Britton (the "Nashville" star has worked with Burns twice previously, in "The Brothers McMullen" and "Looking for Kitty"). Burns has called the film his "most personal work."
The Burns-McGlone screen reunion has been long in the making; McGlone starred in a short film Burns directed for American Express. "It was the best," Burns told HuffPost Entertainment about working with McGlone on the film. The pair will also likely reunite for "The Brothers McMullen" sequel that Burns has been developing throughout the last year.
"It's kind of interesting: an indie film, a micro-budget indie movie, having a sequel," Burns told HuffPost Entertainment about the sequel during the Tribeca Film Festival in April. "I thought, 'If there are any characters I've written about, those would be the only ones I'd like to revisit and see where they are.'"
Watch the clip from "The Fitzgerald Family Christmas" above. Check out a new poster for the film by heading over to EW.com.
The synopsis of "The Fitzgerald Family Christmas" clip, courtesy of Tribeca Film, is below.
In THE FITZGERALD FAMILY CHRISTMAS, Edward Burns returns to the working-class, Irish-American roots of his award-winning debut film THE BROTHERS MCMULLEN. Reuniting with MCMULLEN co-stars Mike McGlone and Connie Britton (“Friday Night Lights”), Burns seamlessly weaves an ensemble story of adult siblings dealing with their estranged father's (Ed Lauter- THE ARTIST, THE LONGEST YARD) desire to return home for Christmas for the first time since he walked out on the family 20 years ago. In this scene, brothers Gerry (Burns) and Quinn (McGlone) are in the family bar, at odds over how to handle their father’s request, which has already reopened old wounds and threatens to tear the rest of the family apart.
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