What is the Worst Christmas Movie Ever? CC2K Debates

Written by: The CinCitizens

Surviving Christmas – By Rob Van Winkle

When the idea for a Worst Christmas Movie Ever contest came up, my mind flew immediately and irrevocably toward Ben Affleck’s Surviving Christmas. This movie and I had a history, after all. Several years ago, with the desire to write up a movie for CC2K’s Crapfest section, I attempted to go see this film in the theaters. However, I ultimately flinched under the self-satisfied smirk on Affleck’s face on the poster, and I instead went home and wrote up a lengthy diatribe against the man himself. This time around, it felt like a cosmic cleansing, made even better when the good folks at Hollywood Video gave me the rental for free (they called this project “Cultural Enrichment,” and attested that “No one should have to pay to watch this movie.”) What made this even better, was that Surviving Christmas was even worse than I had ever imagined.

Affleck plays Drew Latham, a successful and rich ad man. However, when Drew’s girlfriend breaks up with him for suggesting they fly to Fiji over the Christmas holiday (!), he realizes that he is lonely, and yearns for a traditional Christmas experience. His girlfriend’s shrink suggests that he write down a list of things he’s angry about, go to a happy place, and set fire to the list. He goes to his childhood home to do this, but gets hit with a shovel on the head by the irascible James Gandolfini. He wakes up in his old house, and is so moved by the memory that he pays this family a quarter of a million dollars to pretend that they are his family for the holiday. And hilarity sure as hell ensues. By the end of the picture, Gandolfini and his wife have split up and reconciled, their son has given up pornography after seeing his mother naked on his computer (!!), and Affleck has broken up with his girlfriend in favor of Gandolfini’s daughter.

I think, in movies of this kind, they can be forgiven if they sacrifice the message in favor of the premise, or vice versa. However, when both of them are terrible, then the movie is doomed to failure. Surviving Christmas does just this. Firstly, the notion is absolutely absurd. No one in their right mind would ever pay such a sum to force people to pretend to like them. Even if he did, to then insist on calling them mom and dad would be borderline psychotic. And when the “dramatic twist” is ultimately revealed (Drew has NEVER had a family Christmas, because his single mom always worked on that day), we learn that this mental case has been foisting a fabricated fantasy onto a dysfunctional and utterly unpleasant family. The ultimate insult comes from a love triangle that defies all logic, and a comedic twist (when the girlfriend discovers that he is “home” for Christmas after all, she surprises him by showing up at the family’s door, with her parents in tow!) that elicits groans and eye rolls, but not a single laugh.

But for all this horseshit, it could probably be redeemed if the characters had learned a meaningful lesson. However, the only message that seems to be transmitted to these people in any way is that money buys happiness. Drew advises Gandolfini to spend some of the money he’s earning on a new car, which increases his self-esteem and impresses his wife. When the mother (Catherine O’Hara, who apparently never met a Christmas movie she didn’t like) is depressed over her impending divorce, she is cheered up when Drew pays for her to have a full makeover and photo shoot (the results of which are the shots that the son hilariously finds on the web.) Lastly, Drew leaves his girlfriend (a stunning Jennifer Morrison) for no obvious reason, other than the fact that he has slept with her already, while Christina Applegate is an as-yet-unpicked fruit.

Surviving Christmas just could not be worse, and for that reason it could not be a better choice for the Worst Christmas Movie of All Time.