Review of Surviving Christmas (2004) by Christopher S — 18 Dec 2011

Day 12 of The 25 days of Christmas Movie Marathon Countdown....Oh boy....

It takes alot for me to walk away from a "Christmas Movie" disappointed and annoyed. Surviving Christmas managed both of those things. I get the feeling that those involved in making "Surviving Christmas" didn't put much thought into the movie. The characters are so inconsistent and the plot makes so little sense that the movie played like a rough draft of a script thrown together with little but the one-liner concept of a rich guy paying a family to let him spend Christmas with them. Which isn't a horrible concept and possibly could have been interesting had someone with actual writing talent gotten a hold of the script.

Directed by Mike Mitchell (whose most famous film is 1999's "Deuce Bigelow: Male Gigolo") and scripted by no less than four screenwriters (always a bad sign), the flimsy plot revolves around his character's need to "rent" a family living in his childhood home in order to live out his fantasy of having the old-fashioned Christmas he never had. The real problem with "Surviving Christmas" is that the movie feels like an extended SNL sketch lacking any logic or authentic emotional presence. Affleck seems to be on overdrive attempting desperately to be lovable, but the result is an exhausting turn by an actor who has an increasingly annoying habit of playing stupid people in ill-conceived films. Fortunately, he has the likes of James Gandofini and Catherine O'Hara playing the Valcos, the couple who decide to accept Drew's monetary offer to pretend to be his parents.

Gandolfini plays Tom like a gruff, non-violent relative of Tony Soprano, but he does what he can in the role. Catherine O'Hara is always a comic gem no matter the vehicle, and unsurprisingly she earns the best laughs as Tom's wife Christine. In what is becoming her standard screen role, Christina Applegate plays their mistrusting daughter Alicia, who of course becomes Drew's love interest. Despite some good moments where she is enjoying the deceit of playing Drew's sister in front of his girlfriend's family, her character seems to change in lightning-flash strokes making it hard to see what Drew would see in her. One scene in particular where Drew is trying to show his affection to Alicia only for her to act like a complete bitch to him just shows you how no one really knew where they were going with this film. The rest of the cast from Josh Zuckerman, Bill Macy and Jennifer Morrison all have some ok scenes but nothing worthy of note. The story spins completely out of control in it's last leg with one contrived situation piled on top of another until plot strands are tied together in short order.

It's rumored that much of the movie was improvised since there was no finished shooting script. It shows, but I also have to admit I stuck with it to the bitter end. Surviving Christmas is not one of those films that gets better over the years, quite the opposite. Again the concept is not a bad one, it's just that the writers did one horrible job messing it up, which is pretty hard considering even the worst Christmas film is usually passable...Or maybe not.