Surviving Christmas

Ealasaid/ October 25, 2004/ Movie Reviews and Features

Originally written for The Milpitas Post
Directed by: Mike Mitchell
Starring: Ben Affleck, James Gandolfini, Catherine O’Hara, Christina Applegate
Rated: PG-13 for sexual content, language and a brief
Parental Notes: There are some mature themes and swearing here but nothing preteens can’t handle. Young kinds probably won’t understand the humor, but teenagers with a cynical streak will probably enjoy it.

Christmas, as we all know from the blizzard of advertising every year, is a happy time, a time for being with family and sharing the warmth of joy around a Christmas tree and a pile of presents. However, as anyone with an even mildly dysfunctional family can tell you, Christmas is easily the most difficult holiday.
For Drew Latham (Ben Affleck) Christmas is an odd time. He’s an advertising executive, wealthy beyond measure because he knows how to spin the holiday but clueless about how people actually operate. When his attempt to spirit his girlfriend away for the holidays backfires and he has to face the holidays alone, he goes to his childhood home in an attempt to reach some kind of closure with his past (why he won’t spend the holiday with his family is something he doesn’t want to talk about).
He discovers that his childhood home is now the home of the Valcos, a typically dysfunctional American family. Tom (James Gandolfini) is a slob, his wife Christine (Catherine O’Hara) has essentially given up on their marriage, and their teenage son Brian (Josh Zuckerman) spends all his time on the computer in his room looking at pornography. To Drew, though, they seem wonderfully normal and he offers to pay them a quarter of a million dollars to let him be part of their family for Christmas.
Needless to say, the proverbial hilarity ensues. Things are only made worse when Alicia Valco (Christina Applegate), Tom and Christine’s daughter, comes home for the holidays and refuses to play along with Drew’s little plan.
What makes this film work is the way it takes all the standard difficulties of Christmas with a less-than-perfect family and magnifies them. The stress levels in the Valco household skyrocket, dinners are awkward, and Drew’s insistance on “holiday spirit” is insufferable. What makes it all the more hilarious is Drew’s complete oblivion. He has no clue that not only is he trying to recreate a completely unrealistic Christmas but he is actively ruining the holiday for the Valcos. In fact, he thinks he’s creating the perfect Christmas with them. He’s the equivalent of the relentlessly jolly family member who ignores the fact that everyone else is too busy trying not to strangle each other to have a merry Christmas.
Ben Affleck’s status as a major Hollywood player works in his favor here. He lives Drew as if he were born to play a self-centered, insufferably wealthy, clueless basketcase. Although there will almost certainly be a backlash against Affleck’s attempt to step outside his pretty-boy, romantic comedy bracket, he works as a comedian.
James Gandolfini manages to steal most of his scenes, though. Tom Valco a classic 40-something American male: straightforward, weary but basically good-natured, and almost incapable of expressing feelings beyond irritation and anger. Gandolfini has grown a beard so it’s easy to dissociate Tom from Gandolfini’s character on “The Sopranos.” Besides, compared to Tom, Tony Soprano is a sophisticated intellectual. That said, Gandolfini fills the Tom with a wonderful solidity, making him likeable in spite of his failings.
The rest of the cast are solid as well, particularly Catherine O’Hara, who makes Christine not only believable but likeable and even a figure of hope in spite of her problems. Although the script takes a rather pointless pot-shot at her (one of its few missteps) O’Hara carries it off without letting Christine look ashamed. There’s a lot of strength under that bad perm and makeup, and O’Hara brings it out wonderfully.
It seems likely that to really appreciate “Surviving Christmas” one must have suffered through at least one difficult Christmas with the family. This is a film that’s funny in the classic sense – “when I get a papercut, it’s a tragedy. When you fall down an uncovered manhole and die, it’s comedy.” We laugh because we sympathize, but also because we’re glad we aren’t the ones suffering through this particular kind of misery. This is the laugh of the experienced mother at the parents of a newborn. It’s not cruel, it’s understanding, sympathetic, and more than a little relieved.
In the hands of a less skilled director, cast, or writer “Surviving Christmas” would have been just another stupid slapstick misery-fest, but with this crew it’s a blast. It’s a shame that it came out so early in the year – this film would be a great way to blow off the stress of wading through shoppers at a mall on December 20.