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Here's hoping you survive ‘Christmas'
By DAVID GERMAIN / The Associated Press
Thursday, Oct 21, 2004 - 10:01:49 pm CDT

Out of the mouths of puppets. A tune in the marionette parody "Team America: World Police" mocks the war epic "Pearl Harbor" and suggests its star, Ben Affleck, needs acting lessons.

In the atrocious holiday comedy "Surviving Christmas," Affleck is as stilted and awkward as he's ever been, fumbling along with a dopey grin and way-over-the-top jocularity.

You could forgive some of Affleck's graceless hamming if anything in the movie was remotely watchable. But "Surviving Christmas," meant as a bonny holiday-from-hell romp, turns out to be purgatory for viewers.

Performing CPR on a drunken Santa stricken on the sidewalk after he ate a chili dog would be more fun.

The movie is dead from the outset given the artificiality of the premise about a lonely rich guy who hires the folks living in his boyhood home to be his family for the holidays.

In the clunky, hurried setup, the filmmakers impart no credibility, as if they figured Affleck's mug, the Christmas tinsel and trappings and a few dumb sight gags would carry the day.

"Surviving Christmas" is directed by Mike Mitchell, who gave us "Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo." The four people receiving credit on the screenplay include the writing team that worked on "A Very Brady Sequel" and wrote and directed "Josie and the Pussycats."
With such a pedigree, this cinematic lump of coal is no big surprise.

Affleck plays Drew Latham, whose nebulous career as a crackerjack idea man in marketing or product development or something along those lines is supposedly established in a scene where he pitches his bosses on the brilliant idea of pre-spiked eggnog. (This follows an opening-credit montage that includes an old woman who bakes holiday gingerbread men with frowns, then turns on her gas oven, kneels and sticks her head inside.)

Unable to face Christmas alone after a spat with his girlfriend, Drew visits the house where he grew up. After some inane hijinks with the owners, Tom and Christine Valco (James Gandolfini and Catherine O'Hara), Drew worms his way into their hearth and home by offering $250,000 if they'll pretend to be his parents for Christmas.

All this happens in the first few minutes, coming so fast and choppily it barely gives moviegoers time to settle on which cupholder they'd like to keep their soda in.
The Valcos' reluctant daughter and son (Christina Applegate and Josh Zuckerman) get sucked along for the masquerade. Guess which sibling winds up in mistletoe mode with Drew?

The movie woefully wastes the enormous talents of Gandolfini and O'Hara, who look as though they could use a gallon or two of Drew's spiked nog to ease the pained expressions they wear most of the time.

Ambling in every direction, the movie never gives the actors a chance to settle in and put any Christmas cheer into the Valcos.

Applegate tries to play things for real, but it's a lost cause when she's compelled to alternately loathe and love Drew for no reason, scene after scene.

Bill Macy is tossed in to pointless effect as an actor Drew hires to be his grandpa "Doo-Dah."

As for Affleck, the "Team America" puppets were less stiff and more human. Affleck is so clumsy and shallow as Drew, there's no way to empathize with this poor little rich buffoon.

A better actor might have salvaged something late in the game with Drew's soliloquy about why spending Christmas alone is so painful for him, but Affleck's droning delivery snuffs the melodrama.

This is one Christmas in October we could have done without.

Surviving Christmas
*
Director: Mike Mitchell
Stars: Ben Affleck, James Gandolfini, Catherine O'Hara, Christina Applegate
Rated: PG-13 (for sexual content, language and a brief drug reference)
Now Showing: Plaza, East Park, Edgewood
The Reel Story: Affleck delivers a stiff performance in this lifeless comedy about a guy who pays a couple to be his parents during the holidays.