Surviving Christmas Review
by Ryan Ellis (flickershows AT hotmail DOT com)October 29th, 2004
Surviving Christmas
reviewed by Ryan Ellis
October 25, 2004
My Tagline---This Christmas turkey will be lucky to survive past Halloween
It's funny how often an actor playing for laughs doesn't get them. Zany comedy is a pathetic new genre and 'Surviving Christmas' is a proud member of this lame club. It didn't have to be that way. Ben Affleck is not exactly the modern incarnation of Cary Grant, but he's got charm and a sense of humour. Not here, not while flailing away with all his forced comic antics that won't make anyone laugh. His star-making qualities might have been able to bleed through if his desperate enthusiasm didn't smother the entire sad-sack movie. The first thing director Mike Mitchell ('Deuce Bigalow') should have told his star was to stop trying so hard.
Affleck, James Gandolfini, Catherine O'Hara, and Christina Applegate headline the cast. That sounds like an inspired grouping. Unfortunately, they don't work well together at all. Gandolfini has said that most of the film was improvised. Oh. That explains it. Yet again, we have proof that this is no way to make a movie. It's not that the story is deep or original either. Talented actors riffing on old themes (fish out of water, love-it-hate-it family life, lessons taught/learned by an outsider) should have resulted in SOME giggles. Heck, Gandolfini has stolen half the movies he's ever character-acted in. So has O'Hara, for that matter. But in 'Surviving Christmas', they're no more credible than Affleck. What's the movie world amounting to if you can't bank on Tony Soprano to be
entertaining?
Okay, so goofy Chicago millionaire ad exec Drew Latham (Affleck) gets dumped by his materialistic girlfriend (Jennifer Morrison, who's cute and trite) because he isn't eager to celebrate Christmas with either his family or hers. That should be Drew's first hint that this buxom babe isn't the trophy wife for him. For reasons mostly unclear, he gets the bright idea of renting a family to recapture his youth and celebrate the silly season with them. The working-class Valco foursome (father Gandolfini, mother O'Hara, daughter Applegate, and son Josh Zuckerman) reluctantly agree that Drew's 200 thou rent-a-fam offer will hit their greedy spot. Applegate resents him from the start and Zuckerman is too busy enjoying Internet porn and relocating his sleeping quarters to have much of an opinion.
This is the paragraph where I would write "hilarity ensues" if...well, if any hilarity ensued. Not a chance. Drew is pathologically obnoxious and demanding, the Valco family deadpans their disapproval for all of his nutty requests, and eventually the writers resort to some Three's Company-esque misunderstandings in the you'll-predict-it-from-the-start climax. At least Affleck is enthusiastic. I'll give him that. His costars cannot hide their disdain for this project. O'Hara seems to be wondering when other members of the Christopher Guest troupe will walk in the room to help her out. Gandolfini looks like he wants to whack B-Aff with something harder than a snow shovel.
Does Affleck win back his twitty girlfriend? Does he settle for the usually-pissed-off former Kelly Bundy? Does Zuckerman ever get off the computer and meet a real, live girl? Will Affleck win this family's collective heart and maybe even score an invite for next Christmas? These questions will all be answered before you walk out...unless you walk out early. If you decide to leave early once you realize you haven't laughed out loud once, I'll tell you now that there isn't a single surprise in the final reel. Oh, one---the garish Christmas tree doesn't explode, set the house on fire, or otherwise ruin the festivities. Say, what kind of Christmas movie is this anyway?
I should have known better than to devote 90+ minutes to this flick. After all, Dreamworks has sent a crystal-clear message to all of us. They have so much confidence in this CHRISTMAS movie, they released it a week before HALLOWEEN. Yikes. Why don't they just come out and admit that they don't want people to go see 'Surviving Christmas'? What's that? That's my job? Oh, right. Don't go see 'Surviving Christmas'.
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