Em for Movies - The Night Before



This elf looks like a total drunkard.

With less than one month until Christmas, I suppose it’s time to start getting into the spirit. That may involve upping your daily dosage of sappy, saccharine, sentimental hogwash or braving nightmarish department stores to buy useless crap that won’t last the winter or preparing your liver for the traditional holiday binge-drinking (maybe with a cleanse, I don’t know).

One way to kick-start the Christmas feeling is with a good, old-fashioned holiday movie. We all have our favourites. Even the grinchiest of us has a soft spot for at least one of the hundreds (seriously, hundreds) of movies that centre around the “most wonderful time of the year”.

The Night Before pays homage to the classic Christmas films of yesteryear while telling its own coming-of-middle-age story of friendship and poor life choices. Written by a team whose individual credits include This Is the End, The Interview, 50/50 and Superbad, you should know almost exactly what to expect. The Night Before had raucous fun with patented humour that pulls no childish punches, spares no drug reference and straight-up refuses to blush. I laughed, groaned, winced, cackled and even cried. (I’d say the seasonal sappiness is kicking in, but that’s a total cop-out.)

Not sure if the non-stop silliness of The Night Before has what it takes to become a classic Christmas tale that will stand the test of annual re-viewing. But for right now, as December looms and the days diminish, this heartfelt yet mindless romp was exactly what I needed. Also, as my friend noted at the end of the movie, “The world needs more Lizzy Caplan.” I agree.

Egg nog with plenty o rum. 

Cheers,

Em