MovieChat Forums > The Rooftop Christmas Tree (2016) Discussion > How is solution not another code violati...

How is solution not another code violation?

posted 7 years ago by stevehmarshall
1 reply | jump to latest

Overall, I enjoyed this movie and thought it was very sweet, with a good story and acting. I'm just having trouble understanding the ending/solution.
<spoiler alert here>
The reason the older black homeowner (played by Tim Reid) was put in jail every Christmas was the tree on the rooftop violated a city building code. The two romantic leads got together, looked up prior legal cases, and she found the one that said it was OK, as long as it wasn't attached to the roof. So all these townspeople get involved, buy a new tree, and build some type of structure to hold the tree up, and put it up even HIGHER, on the very top of the house. It's not shown clearly, but it still has to be attached to the roof somehow. How is this not STILL violating the building code? What am I missing here?

[–] Kennedy (95) 4 years ago

Well, I guess they used the saw-horses and stuff to build a platform and then put the tree on that platform without attaching it? And the building permit was for the platform and not for the tree? Don't see how it would make the situation safer but everyone in the movie acknowledged it was a legal loophole anyway. From the beginning everyone involved in the case was super understanding actually, without any real antagonism. Sure they had to go through the motion because of some procedures but none of them really cared about the tree and all where happy enough to work together and find a solution.

Was also really tiny village where the highlight of the whole christmas period was the lighting of a christmas tree not bigger than the one you see in every second garden, and judges/lawyers/prosecutors/city employees/restaurant workers all knew each other so intimately that they could probably do whatever they want as long as no one in the clique objected.

Now I think about it, it was crazy HOW LITTLE happened in this movie, it moved at a glacial pace and still it was quite satisfying, not bad, but really nothing happened. It could have been one of three subplots in a 20 minute sitcom episode.

Man you could have filmed this whole movie on a 5000 dollar budget with an iphone in about a day time I reckon. Biggest cost would probably be to get that tree on the roof.