Review: Surviving Christmas (***)

SURVIVING CHRISTMAS
A film review by Steve Rhodes

Copyright 2004 Steve Rhodes

RATING (0 TO ****): ***


As SURVIVING CHRISTMAS opens, you can smell a cinematic disaster in the
offing. With loud, irony-laced Christmas music ("It's The Most Wonderful
Time Of The Year"), the movie cuts between clichéd images, good and bad.
Festive shoppers gaily traipse between brightly colored stores laden with
festive and luxurious goods while somewhere else a Christmas-cookie-making
granny is about to commit suicide with her gas oven. Not able to wait until
the Christmas season is here -- it's not even Halloween yet much less
Thanksgiving -- the movie looks like it might be just as big a turkey as
graces most holiday tables.



The plot concerns a wealthy, lonely guy named Drew Latham, who can't find
anybody to take him in for Christmas so he buys himself an instant family.
Haven't we seen this movie before and wasn't it called DICKIE ROBERTS, a
pathetic picture featuring the truly awful David Spade? SURVIVING CHRISTMAS
stars Ben Affleck, an actor who has a less than sterling record when it
comes to some of his script choices: GIGLI, DAREDEVIL, PEARL HARBOR, stop me
when you can't take any more.



But wait. Just when you're about to dismiss Affleck and his over-the-top
demeanor, the story starts to click. After getting dumped by an airhead
aptly named Missy (Jennifer Morrison), Drew finds comfort in the
dysfunctional Valco family, led by the taciturn but bickering Tom (James
Gandolfini) and Christine (Catherine O'Hara). As his temporary mom and dad
for a price, the parents give him all of the fake love that a large check
can buy. But since they don't have much of a clue as to how a happy family
might act, they don't exactly make a warm and friendly home for Drew. In
fact, it takes frequent references to their contract to get them to hit
their marks and perform up to minimal standards. It's no wonder that their
teenage son, Brian (Josh Zuckerman), would rather hide in his room looking
at dirty pictures on his computer than come downstairs and be with his
family.



The movie really gets in gear when Drew finds that he isn't the only grown
child in the family. He is shocked and upset to find that he has to share
his new family with Alicia (Christina Applegate), Tom and Christine's grown
daughter who suddenly shows up for the holidays.



As everyone is busy faking it, something strange starts to happen. They
begin to enjoy themselves, as pseudo fun begins to morph occasionally into
actual delight. Drew and Alicia, who at first squabble like real siblings,
begin to reexamine their relationship. The icy on the cake comes when Missy
brings her family to visit Drew's. This episode engenders the movie's
biggest and most satisfying set of laughs.



By the end, the audience's sarcastic smiles turn into sympathetic and
genuine laughs. A movie I thought I was going to hate at first turned into
a nice little treat. But I still can't figure out why they chose to open a
Christmas picture two months ahead of the season it celebrates, since, by
the end, it becomes a story with real Christmas spirit.



SURVIVING CHRISTMAS runs a fast 1:33. It is rated PG-13 for "sexual
content, language and a brief drug reference" and would be acceptable for
kids around 9 and up.



The film opens nationwide in the United States on Friday, October 22, 2004.
In the Silicon Valley, it will be showing at the AMC theaters, the Century
theaters and the Camera Cinemas.



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