Review: Surviving Christmas


Self-absorbed ad exec Ben Affleck is dumped by his yuppie girlfriend at Christmas. Not wanting to suffer through Christmas on his own, he returns to the house of his childhood and rents out the family that actually live there so he can have the perfect family Christmas he believes only money can buy! The guy even writes scripts for family discussion at the dinner table, hires a local theatre actor to ‘play’ grandpa, and when it appears Mom (Catherine O’Hara) and Dad (James Gandolfini- who hates the idea but wants the money Affleck offers them) aren’t getting along so well these days, even that will not prevent Affleck from having his delusional perfect Christmas. Christina Applegate is the cynical, hardened daughter who takes an instant disliking to Affleck (and you know what that means, folks…)

 

2004 Mike Mitchell (whose “Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo” is actually a preferable film... Did I just say that out loud?) Christmas comedy starts out pretty badly, with one of the worst premises I’ve seen in a while, in terms of believability. Affleck is awful (he’s alright as the heartless bastard, but when he needs to become sympathetic…The Affleck don’t do ‘sympathy’ so well), Gandolfini surprisingly muted, and Applegate a shrill cow, even when she’s not supposed to be. It gets a bit better as it goes along, with O’Hara giving a terrific performance, both funny and surprisingly sad. However, you first must make it through the opening half hour, and that terrible central premise. I wouldn’t bother, personally.

 

Scripted by Deborah Kaplan, Harry Elfont, Jeffrey Ventimilia and Joshua Sternin, a large list of writers that has the expected underwhelming results here with this mediocre flick based on a completely stupid premise. There’s plenty of other, better Christmas movies out there, don’t waste your time with this one.

 

Rating: C

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Review: Hellraiser (2022)

Recovering junkie Odessa A’zion accompanies scuzzy boyfriend Drew Starkey on a break-in where all they find is a weird puzzle box. A’zion later opens the box and after some weird shit happens, A’zion and Starkey figure it might be a good idea to learn more about this messed up trinket. Goran Visnjic plays a millionaire who possessed the box before our protagonist nicked it.   Is there any point in remaking/rebooting “Hellraiser” when the 1987 adaptation of Clive Barker’s original text was written and directed by Barker himself? And is considered a horror classic? On evidence here, absolutely not. Directed by David Bruckner ( “The Signal” ) and scripted by Ben Collins ( “The Night House” ) and Luke Piotrowski (ditto) this is an entirely tedious affair. I took a long time to get on board with the 1987 “Hellraiser” , I have to admit. It was wildly imaginative and original, like a nightmare transplanted on to film. However, the characters were stone cold and left me similarly chil...
Read more

Review: Cinderella (1950)

The story of poor young Cinderella (voiced by Ilene Woods), treated as a servant by her nasty stepmother (voiced by Eleanor Audley), and dismissed by her thoroughly rotten, ugly stepsisters. Her only friends are a group of mice, who are forever being menaced by a cat named Lucifer (or as I call him, Grumpy Cheshire Cat). The King (hoping to find a wife for his charming son) is throwing a ball and every available young woman is invited to attend, and Cinderella is most excited to go. However, her stepmother and stepsisters do all they can to prevent this from happening. But with help from the mice and one fairy godmother (voiced by Verna Felton) later, and Cinderella looks set to attend the ball. You know the rest, folks.   Lovely 1950 Disney animated movie from directors Clyde Geronimi ( “Peter Pan” , “Lady and the Tramp” ), Wilfred Jackson ( “Fantasia” , “Alice in Wonderland” , “Peter Pan” ) & Hamilton Luske ( “Pinocchio” , “Fantasia” , “Peter Pan” ), that is a bit t...
Read more

Review: Jinnah

The story of Mohammed Ali Jinnah (Sir Christopher Lee) the politically moderate founder of Pakistan. A Muslim lawyer, Jinnah fought to form a separate nation from India for the Muslim minority, whilst Mahatma Gandhi (Sam Dastor) wished for India to stay united and proposed Jinnah as the new PM as a compromise. James Fox plays British viceroy Lord Mountbatten, Indira Varma plays Jinnah’s wife, and veteran bit player Vernon Dobtcheff plays a British dignitary.   Although Christopher Lee’s title performance received some critical notice and the actor himself was very proud of the work, this modestly budgeted 1998 biopic from director Jamil Dehlavi ( “Immaculate Conception” with Melissa Leo) and co-writer Farrukh Dhondy ( “Red Mercury” with Stockard Channing and Ron Silver) was largely ignored at the time and still very little-known today. Part of that is probably due to the poor marketing of the film, and difficulty in finding a distributor. It’s hard to get people to talk abo...
Read more