Last February, director Garry Marshall rounded up a mammoth cast for Valentine’s Day, a sprawling romantic dramedy requiring not so much the direction of actors as the directing of traffic. This December, he’s rounded up a mammoth cast for New Year’s Eve, a sprawling romantic dramedy requiring not so much the direction of actors as the directing of traffic. In other words, it’s more of the same. And if New Year’s Eve succeeds, it’s not difficult to imagine Marshall’s inevitable encroachment on other holidays. Watch retired schoolteacher Al Pacino, in Marshall’s Thanksgiving, finding true love as he’s drawn to the warm smells of basting turkey in Debra Winger’s kitchen next door. See former magician Daniel Radcliffe, in Marshall’s Easter, withdrawn into a shell ever since he sawed his assistant in half, now lured into a cosy companionship with the similarly suffering Dakota Fanning, who accidentally drove over a rabbit. Behold Adam Sandler, in Marshall’s Good Friday, discovering his long-lost sister, also played by Adam Sandler, in the last pew at church. The possibilities are endless. And endlessly terrifying.
How do you fit, into a two-hour running time, a myriad plotlines that accommodate – in alphabetical order – Halle Berry, Jessica Biel, Jon Bon Jovi, Abigail Breslin, Robert De Niro, Josh Duhamel, Zac Efron, Katherine Heigl, Ashton Kutcher, Lea Michele, Sarah Jessica Parker, Michelle Pfeiffer and Hilary Swank? Marshall’s solution is to get to the point. In their first scene together, Katherine Heigl slaps Jon Bon Jovi for dumping her, a year ago, after promising marriage. In their second scene, she proposes a truce. In scene three, she smiles at his cornball antics. Scene four, they are reunited. It’s romance as a race against time. In Marshall’s version of Pride and Prejudice, Elizabeth Bennett would be bedding Mr. Darcy in five minutes. New Year’s Eve begins to redeem itself in the latter portions, though it’s hard to say if we are being won over by genuine emotion or by contrivances that are merely not as awful as the ones that came earlier. The most entertainment to be derived may be outside the theatre, in the form of a drinking game, a shot for each thankless role. I vote for Michelle Pfeiffer, who plays a mousy secretary as if she were a demented bag lady. Hopefully Marshall gives her something better to do in Labor Day.
An edited version of this piece can be found here.
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Nandini Krishnan
December 10, 2011
This has an edited version? What did you leave out, the drinking game?
Sal
December 11, 2011
That first paragraph was absolutely hilarious.
brangan
December 11, 2011
Nandini Krishnan: Oh that’s just a standard disclaimer. You never know what the desk will edit out — maybe that “bedding” bit. So just to say that this is the version I wrote…
Nandini Krishnan
December 11, 2011
Oh, I thought it was just us freelancers that had to deal with the chopping. And mourn the irony that’s been savaged by a sub. My review surprised me by claiming “This movie is a balm for freshly broken hearts” or something along those lines.
Sujatha
December 11, 2011
Sounds like ‘Love Actually’, repeated ad nauseam. These kinds of movies are more advertising schlock for the Christmas season and the stars who show up in the vignettes, suitable for theaters with snoozing gentlemen while the ladies shop themselves to death.
rameshram
December 16, 2011
while the song itself is pretty lousy, dont you get a late 80′s illaya raja feel to the beat?(the pokkiri raja time)
brangan
December 16, 2011
rameshram: Pokkiri Raja is MSV, but I kinda see what you mean.
rameshram
December 16, 2011
yeah my bad, the late 80′s when ilayaraja was providing the lead in musical tastes.