Once upon a time, in a less commercial land far, far away, the end of the year holiday season didn't begin in earnest until a few weeks after Thanksgiving. Then, with retailers realizing most everyone had the post-turkey day off, the official start of the season was moved up to that Friday. In the past few years, however, holiday creep has progressed even more, with some holiday related displays now showing up on or before even Halloween.
The latest such example of that is the appropriately titled "Surviving Christmas" a purported comedy hitting the big screen more than two months before its titular namesake. Now, it's not entirely unusual for specifically themed films to appear out of season, as it were. Even so, it seems a risky gambit to release a Christmas film that far out, especially one that's so bad that it could turn summer into winter.
The filmmakers -- director Mike Mitchell ("Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo") and his quartet of screenwriters, Deborah Kaplan & Harry Elfont ("Josie and the Pussycats," "Can't Hardly Wait") and Jeffrey Ventimilia & Joshua Sternin (making their feature debut after writing for various TV shows) -- have concocted their misbegotten tale around the age-old theme and reality that the supposedly joyous and family friendly trappings of the holiday season are often anything but that. As most everyone can identify with the stress, family bickering and more, there's obviously plenty of comedic potential present.
Yet, rather than having their protagonist suffer at the hands of his own family, the filmmakers opted for the plot to have the twist that he hires strangers to be his family over the holidays and then proceeds to make their holiday life a living hell. Even as lame and dumb as that might sound, the results are surprisingly bad and when I say that, I mean bad as in get up and leave atrocious.
Although I'm guessing the film is supposed to be -- in full or part -- a black comedy (based on the opening holiday montage where grandma makes gingerbread men featuring frowns and then puts her own head in the oven -- that and just about every other aspect of it misfires. That starts with the basic premise of a wildly successful marketing guru having enough spare change to pay the family that now lives in his childhood home a quarter of a million dollars to pretend that he's their son.
Had he just been some idiot who had inherited that money from his now deceased family, the notion may have worked (okay, it probably wouldn't have, but I'm trying to be nice). And there's certainly nothing wrong with a film -- especially a comedy -- from bending the rules of reality for setting up the laughs. The problem is that the results aren't remotely funny.
In fact, they're so painfully bad that I couldn't ever tell if James Gandolfini ("The Mexican," "Get Shorty"), Catherine O'Hara ("A Mighty Wind," "Best in Show") and Josh Zuckerman ("Austin Powers in Goldmember," "Return to the Secret Garden") -- who play the rented family - were acting annoyed or really were experiencing the same pain as that felt by the audience.
I've never been a huge fan of broadly played comedy, but this goes so far in that direction that no wrapping paper could contain it. In fact, it makes most dumb and poorly conceived TV sitcoms seem like sophisticated comedy in comparison. And the chief culprit -- beyond the filmmakers who put them up to this mess -- is none other than Ben Affleck ("Jersey Girl," "Gigli").
Whether it was their or his idea to play his character like a loon is moot, as is the damage is done. Way over the top, grating and not remotely funny, Affleck is more caricature than character and his comedy is so wooden that the local termite unions are battling over harvesting rights. I understand that he's trying to relive his childhood and/or create one that never really existed for him (all of which is explained in a late in the game revelation that's supposed to be heartfelt but is only painfully obvious and stilted), but the material simply doesn't work.
Nor do the repeated bits about a teen viewing Internet pornography on his computer (with a surprise model rocking his lust-filled, teen world), an actor hired to play the grandfather (along with his understudy replacement) or the mistaken incestuous sibling gag. The latter stems from the long, drawn-out and entirely predictable hate/love relationship between Affleck's character and the returning daughter one played by Christina Applegate ("Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy," "View From the Top").
There's never any guess about how that -- or any other part of the film for that matter -- will turn out, except in how many stupid, unrealistic and unfunny ways things will develop. I could have bought her falling for him had he paid her to do so, but what we get instead is the typically lame Hollywood comedy version, subsequent anger and breakup, and then getting back together again.
The fact that Affleck's character is, or more accurately was, in a relationship with an apparently dimwitted young woman -- played by Jennifer Morrison ("Grind," "Urban Legends: Final Cut") -- is supposed to add comedic complication to the mix (as in having to juggle two women). Yet, the filmmakers even bungle that, first by not having his character hire the family to fool her into thinking they're the real thing (she dumps him over such matters at the beginning of the film), and then when she does finally show up and he pays them extra to act that way.
The film may have had a better chance of working if he had that intention from the get-go (as at least it would have explained away some of the ludicrous elements), but only if Affleck, Mitchell and his screenwriting team were replaced.
About as funny as a lump of coal (although that's probably demeaning to such graphite material that at least has the potential of being a diamond in the rough), the only meagerly interesting thing about this release is whether Gandolfini will go into Tony Soprano mode and whack those responsible for this mess (alas, he doesn't). Here's hoping you can survive "Surviving Christmas." The film rates as a 1 out of 10.
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