Starring Taye Diggs, Morris Chestnut, and Sanaa Lathan. Rated 14A.

Christmas is an inherently dramatic season, as would be expected from an event that combines family, impulse spending, and alcohol. In The Best Man Holiday, the characters grapple with additional matters such as pregnancy, infidelity, and the need to set an NFL rushing record.

The surfeit of rom-com elements is understandable given that the movie is a sequel to 1999’s The Best Man; writer-director Malcolm D. Lee has to catch us up with his returning ensemble.

Harper (Taye Diggs), once a brilliant novelist, has been devastated by writer’s block, a condition he hides from his pregnant wife, Robin (Sanaa Lathan), and the college friends that have accepted the Christmas invitation of his former bestie, Lance (Morris Chestnut), a sports icon in the twilight of his career.

Lance has only semi-forgiven Harper for past shenanigans with wife Mia (Monica Calhoun), while shenanigans continue to be supplied by oversexed Quentin (Terrence Howard) and Shelby (Melissa De Sousa). Shelby loves to stir up trouble between her ex-boyfriend Julian (Harold Perrineau), a buttoned-down academic, and his wife Candace (Regina Hall), a former stripper.

To add to Harper’s emotional load, Robin suspects Jordan (Nia Long), an ex-girlfriend who remains conspicuously single.

Both movies rely on what Roger Ebert used to call “Idiot Plots”, in which we are made to wait for the conversation that resolves allegedly comic misunderstandings.

The subtext is more interesting. The movie presents aspirational lifestyles meant to counteract grim African-American stereotypes. Unfortunately, apart from being Christian to a degree rare in movies, the characterization consists largely of designer clothes and straight hair.

The pleasures come primarily from performance. Diggs, having aged from his too-pretty youth, is an effective lead, while Chestnut nearly humanizes the saintly Lance. But as before, Terrence Howard easily steals the movie as an ever-partying Pagliacci who would be great to know, and murder to actually be.