By David Kronke | Daily News

A Town Without Christmas 

Give "A Town Without Christmas" a little credit: It goes full-tilt toward exploring the melancholia the holiday season inspires in some folks -- for a while, at least, before throwing in the towel and serving up the usual narratively convenient if unlikely seasonal uplift.

Patricia Heaton, two-time Emmy winner for "Everybody Loves Raymond," stars as M.J. Jensen, as hard a hitting reporter as local television has seen. She notes that "sensitive men never like me," and balks when her boss (Ernie Hudson) gives her an apparent puff-ball assignment -- to venture to a small Northwestern community and find a child who has written a desperate letter to Santa that includes the phrase, "I'm ready to leave this world and I know how to do it" (which is sort of how one might feel after sitting through too many "inspirational" holiday films).

En route, she meets David Reynolds (Rick Roberts), a swell if terribly earnest guy whose lugubrious children's stories and greeting cards earmark him for corporate failure. It turns out he has a mysterious series of paintings that may have clues that could lead him and M.J. to the troubled child. It also turns out that they have to share a room at a bed and breakfast. You do the math.

They find the small town crippled, both financially and environmentally, and the mayor and his wife on opposite sides of every local issue, which threatens the local holiday pageant and puts their inventive daughter in emotional turmoil. You do the math.

No amount of math, however, will explain the presence of Max (Peter Falk in scenery-chewing mode to rival Godzilla), a mysterious fellow who pops in and out whenever it's most propitious.

The film's subtext -- David's stories are too dark, the paintings are too moody, M.J.'s reports are too edgy -- suggests that this film, likewise, has some sort of graver, urgent importance than the usual holiday fare. But really, it's just the same old same old.

What's different is the amount of conviction the cast invests in this material. Roberts is surprisingly convincing in a role that's all goofy idealism, while Heaton gets a chance to demonstrate a little range, even though "Everybody Loves Raymond" offers her plenty of opportunity to show off her darker side. But certainly, she makes this more affecting than one might expect, which makes you'd think CBS could find a better side project for such a valuable performer.