I saw Office Christmas Party over the weekend, and I thought about doing a review of it for this week's blog (seeing as how I'm going for a Christmas theme during December). But truthfully, even though I liked the movie I didn't get enough out of it to really justify devoting a whole blog to it.
Here's the short version: Deadpool's buddy is the underachieving CEO of a technology branch. But his sister, a bitter Rachel Green, has recently gotten onto a power trip and is exercising her ability to lay off forty percent of his staff and/or shut down the whole damned branch; apparently because dad liked him more. But there's one last hope. By betting all of their resources on a single client and showing him a good Christmas party, it could save the branch and everyone's jobs. And Jason Bateman's in it.
Now, I know I'm being snide in my description, because it really is the only way I know how to connect with the world. It turns out I actually did like quite a lot of things about the movie. It's an ensemble character comedy, once again with Kate McKinnon's screen presence grabbing you (although I also expect some good post-SNL things from Vanessa Bayer). And unlike a piece of shit Christmas ensemble like 1994's Mixed Nuts, Office Christmas Party carefully sets up and executes the gradual escalation of the plot getting out of hand. My main problem was, I just didn't find it that funny.
I don't like giving courtesy laughs. More often than not I found myself merely smiling at the jokes and then choosing to top it off with a pseudo-laugh out of respect for the movie's efforts. First off, crude humor doesn't work for me. I find it's predictable and easy and almost always lazy. Secondly, we may actually be getting to a point where there are just no more jokes of shock value to tell. Case in point, from the moment I heard about 3D printers I thought "Some jackass is going to stick his junk in it". That was a couple of years ago. They did it in this movie, which means it's a couple of years outdated. And that's pretty much the target where the humor consistently lands.
But ignoring the fact that the movie doesn't succeed as a comedy, in a strange way it succeeds as a Christmas film. I came out of theater responding rather favorably to that element. Now I'd never given much thought to what makes a film a Christmas film. I'd always just assumed the genre referred to any movie set at Christmas. But then I got to thinking about it, and it turns out there's a bit more complexity to what qualifies a film as a 'Christmas movie'.
Take Die Hard. A lot of people insist Die Hard is a Christmas movie. I respectfully say bullshit. A Christmas movie is one you ignore eleven months out of the year and only dust off once the Black Friday crowds have pissed off. Die Hard is an iconic action movie to which every 'one man against impossible odds' action movie is compared. Every day out of the year somebody is watching Die Hard. So, no. Die Hard is a Christmas movie in the same way A Walk to Remember is a musical.
So I guess the question on the table is: What makes a Christmas film? Or more accurately, what distinguishes it as such from most other genres? To try to answer that, I'm going to turn to some of the films which are often cited (right or wrong) as Christmas classics; ones that I feel at least use the vocabulary correctly. Here they are.
A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965)
Kind of light on plot, but if there's ever been a cast of characters you want to hang out with every December, it's the Peanuts crew. And this simple tale captures a sense of community better than any other special I can think of.
How the Grinch Stole Christmas (1966)
Wow, the mid-sixties had a one-two punch when it came to classic Christmas entertainment. You have your Grinch, who's a rare villain protagonist to actually succeed in his goals yet still fail in the ramifications.
Scrooge (1970)
Ebenezer Scrooge has probably been played by more actors than Macbeth, but Albert Finney's portrayal is my absolute favorite. His Scrooge is at war with himself, and while he thinks he hates Christmas it's clear to the audience (and several of the supporting characters) that he really just hates the unaddressed pain that he's in. The period friendly, and sometimes haunting, music only supplements the action proper.
A Christmas Story (1983)
Kind of a themed series of encounters around little Ralphie whose happiness hinges on acquiring the MacGuffin of his desire. A child in an adult world ultimately has no power, but we certainly get sucked into believing along with him that the disenchanted mall Santa could have pulled through for him.
National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (1989)
Kind of an odd one, as Chevy Chase really is the last Hollywood actor you'd associate with Christmas's prerequisite sentimentality. But even if you don't feel it, you can accept that his character does, and you wind up rooting for him from a comedic distance.
It's a Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie (2002)
I've talked about this one before, essentially the film is Muppets -It's a Wonderful Life. But unlike their version of Treasure Island or The Wizard of Oz, the Muppets get to play themselves, which makes the emotions feel like they are REALLY happening to the foam and felt hand puppets.
Okay, that's our six member lineup. Let's see if they've got anything in common besides being set at Christmas.
The conflict:
At the heart of any story is conflict. When you have a clear protagonist and antagonist it's easy to know which side you're supposed to take. Kermit is a caring workaholic who always puts the needs of the many first, which makes him a better person than any of us. Mrs. Bitterman (whose name is an unbridled giveaway) has no place in her heart for abstraction. When you think about it, she may not be a very good person but she seems just fine as a boss. I sort of wonder, if this story had taken place in the summer would Kermit have been out of line for asking her to think of something other than the bottom line?
And there's the first idea that I'm going to set to the side. What is Christmas? There's the obvious answer: the celebration of the birth of Christ (an event that likely happened closer to the Easter season), but let's go a little deeper. I've read semi-conflicting notions as to why the day of December 25th was historically significant, but it seems to boil down to the winter solstice. Days are getting shorter. Plant life around you is dying. And in the many human ages prior to indoor temperature control, there is the very real possibility you might not live to see Spring.
Having a sense of mortality hovering above you naturally makes you feel a bit more introspective. You start asking questions like what's really important. Maybe your usual rat race has put you on autopilot, but the Christmas season grants you an awakening. But like I say, let's put that aside and check on our other villains.
Ralphie doesn't exactly have one. There's a couple of bullies but they're really just window dressing. Perhaps this is one case where Ralphie perceives a villain in his own story that we don't; i.e. his father. Most of his fears seem to flow back to how his father is going to react to Ralphie's shortcomings. And yet it turns out that Ralphie's father is the one who knew (apparently without being told) what gift would make Ralphie truly happy.
Charlie Brown doesn't have a villain unless you consider it's him versus the world, kind of like Clark Griswald in National Lampoon. In Clark's case, his boss instigates his misery, but he's really up against fate itself. Scrooge and the Grinch are their own villains.
The motive:
So that doesn't exactly help, so we'll pause that as well. Let's turn now to what each character wants. Scrooge is the most complicated. He claims he just wants to be left alone. Translated: stop asking me for more than what I'm already doing. As I said, he's in pain, and he may not even be aware of it. Likewise, he has lots of money but he lives like he's poverty stricken. Meaning he's conditioned himself into blindness for reality. He only sees that the world causes him pain.
Similarly, the Grinch is negatively affected by the joy of others and he thinks the only way to achieve inner peace is by making the world around him miserable. Ralphie's motives are practically as selfish, but at least his don't hurt anyone else. He just equates joy with a single relic, and he's a kid so you can't blame him.
Kermit and Clark are both in unfortunate situations that they may very well have brought on themselves. In Kermit's case, he's hoping for mercy from someone who delights in refusing it. Clark wants to make his family happy, and pushes himself into a meltdown trying. Whereas Kermit's hope is what keeps driving him forward, Clark's optimism is almost always his undoing.
And then we have Charlie Brown, who as wiser-than-me people have pointed out, is not a child but rather a metaphor for adult feelings. In reality, no child obsesses over what the true meaning of Christmas is, they just want the damn doll. But Charlie Brown wants meaning, the same way most of us do even if we don't always realize it. There is something inherently human about wanting to connect with something bigger.
So our motives are concepts: eliminating pain, enlightenment, and being a catalyst to connect others to...something. Maybe now we're getting somewhere.
The resolution:
Scrooge changes through the efforts of the supernatural. The Grinch changes through his own awakening. Ralphie fails in every single one of his efforts but still wins because his father knew what he really wanted. Kermit fails to the point of breaking but comes to understand that the Muppet Theater isn't the Muppets. Clark's house is a wreck and he's about to go to jail, but fate finally throws him a break because even it wants him to succeed. And Charlie Brown never 'wins', but by the end of the special success has become irrelevant.
I think this is the important distinction of Christmas films. The protagonist cannot succeed on their own accord, and it's conceivable they may not even get what they thought they wanted. If you're a person of faith, this fits in perfectly with the notion of a higher power which seems quite difficult to expunge from the Christmas season. I'm a Christian (Methodist, if you're keeping score) so naturally I'm going to interpret everything through a connection to God, even if I don't always phrase it that way. As such, for me Christmas is about a celebration of God's love; worded secularly: a stronger awareness that we're not in control and it's better that way.
So maybe the real villains of Christmas stories are human failings. With Kermit, his villain is self-doubt, not Mrs. Bitterman. Clark's is probably his lack of foresight. The Grinch and Scrooge both have a stubbornness against self-reflecting. Charlie Brown is trying to swim in deeper waters. And Ralphie? I'm reaching a bit here, but perhaps his villain is a kind of pride. A feeling that if he does something he'll get what he wants in a cause and effect relationship. But in the end he only gets what he wants because something in the universe beyond his comprehension decided to give it to him.
Humility is an incredibly hard thing to learn, and almost impossible to teach. So retrieving our earlier discussion about Christmas awakening, this season may ultimately be about humility. The forces of nature have the ability to kill every one of us. Our Creator is under no obligation to care one way or the other about our fate. We're neither promised nor owed a tomorrow. But most of us will have one, and once in a while we're reminded to be thankful for it. And hopefully the select few who don't will look back on their yesterdays with more joy than pain.
So in conclusion, this is what I think a Christmas film is. It's a film set in the month of December where the fundamental message is "It's not about you". "What is it about?" you might ask. Well, that's a mystery. I say it's about God because I'm a Christian (and still Methodist). You may not. You may think it's about something else. You may not know what you think it's about, or even care. But the bottom line is: life, time, and the universe doesn't begin and end with us. And a Christmas film acknowledges that there is something bigger than us, and we have the blessing to be a part of it.
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