Surviving Christmas Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		1.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.5
Overall		2.5

Surviving Christmas Blu-ray Movie Review

Surviving "Surviving Christmas"

Reviewed by Michael Reuben November 17, 2013

Surviving Christmas might have been funnier with a different leading man. The director, Mike Mitchell, makes cartoons, either genuinely animated like Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked and Shrek Forever After (both hugely successful) or live action like the critically reviled but popular Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo (Mitchell's feature debut). Surviving Christmas is the same type of film, since it revolves around a protagonist who isn't so much a person as a two-dimensional concept. He's a shallow, self-centered, demanding and clueless manchild, with just enough of a soft center to allow for a sentimental ending. Adam Sandler has this kind of character down cold, but Mitchell was trying to get a similar performance from Ben Affleck—and Affleck, despite his talents (and, according to his co-stars, a joker's personality off-camera), can't play the clown onscreen. He goes through the motions, and he's surrounded by a solid supporting cast, but the jokes mostly fall flat. Except for an occasional bit, usually where Affleck is not involved, the movie is painful to sit through.

Drew Latham (Affleck) is a successful Chicago ad man whose cynical talent lies in understanding how consumers want to indulge themselves and crafting a message that encourages them to do so. Drew lives his life according to the same creed. Right now, he's planning a Christmas vacation trip to Fiji with his girlfriend, Missy Vanglider (Jennifer Morrison), but it turns out Missy expected something different for the holidays: something with diamonds that fits on the fourth finger of the left hand. Christmas is the family holiday, she tells Drew, before storming off in a huff to spend it with hers.

Missy's hissy fit sends Drew on an odyssey that lands him in front of the suburban house where he grew up, now occupied by the family of Tom and Christine Valco (James Gandolfini and Catherine O'Hara) and their teenage son Brian (Josh Zuckerman). In a fit of nostalgia, Drew offers the Valcos $250,000 to pretend to be his family for Christmas; in a moment of madness, Tom accepts the deal. (Phill Lewis, who plays the lawyer with the contract between Drew and the Valcos, provides one of the brief moments in the film that is genuinely funny.)

The Valcos almost immediately regret their deal when Drew starts demanding meticulous re-creations of his childhood memories, down to the tiny marshmallows in the hot chocolate and the Santa hat his father wore when they bought their tree and went Christmas shopping. The situation gets even more tense with the arrival of the Valcos' adult daughter, Alicia (Christina Applegate), who was expecting a normal family Christmas and thinks her parents have lost their minds.

Despite desperate attempts at varying the routines with the introduction of a faux grandfather played by a local community theater actor (Bill Macy) and a fashion photographer (the reliably bizarre Udo Kier), plus the eleventh-hour arrival of Missy and her strait-laced parents (David Selby and Stephanie Faracy), the script credited to four different writers never rises above sketch comedy—and was reportedly not complete during production. O'Hara, who began her career in improv, handles this situation with aplomb, as does Applegate, who spent ten years on Married with Children and instinctively knows how to time her performance as if a laugh track will be added later. Gandolfiini, who was a master of slow burns and deadpan reactions, fits right in, but Affleck shows the strain of trying to produce a kind of manic energy that doesn't come naturally to him. Zany isn't his native tongue, and he has neither comedy training nor sitcom experience to fall back on. Drew Latham's desperate determination to have a great family Christmas is supposed to be what's driving the whole movie, just like Clark Griswold's in National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, but the Spark-y is missing.

Surviving Christmas Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Two cinematographers are credited for Surviving Christmas, Peter Lyons Collister (The Replacement Killers and Deuce Bigalow) and Tom Priestley Jr. (The Thomas Crown Affair). Still, there's nothing distinctive about the photographic style of Surviving Christmas. The film was professionally lit and shot, but dozens of DPs in Hollywood could have provided the same look, which is generic TV sitcom.

Warner's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray of this Paramount/Dreamworks catalog title is a perfectly adequate affair, with sharp, detailed imagery, solid blacks and bright, saturated colors that show off the seasonal decor to good advantage. The credits of Surviving Christmas do not contain any listing for a digital intermediate, so that it appears this 2003 film (released in 2004) was finished photochemically. Some light grain reduction appears to have been applied in the film transfer, but not so much as to reduce detail. Now and again, a hint of electronic sharpening can be detected for those who are looking, but it is not so severe as to cause obvious edge halos. Had Surviving Christmas passed through a contemporary DI facility, the same effects could have been achieved without leaving any trace, and no one would be the wiser.

The average bitrate of 23.92 Mbps falls squarely within Warner's usual range of compression and is generally adequate for this non-action material.

Surviving Christmas Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The best sound effects in Surviving Christmas' sound mix, presented in lossless DTS-HD MA 5.1, are the simplest, like the clang of a snow shovel when Tom Valco first encounters Drew on his front lawn. Scenes that would seem most likely to present opportunities for clever surround effects tend to be dominated by music (e.g., the death-defying tobbogan ride), either Randy Edelman's inventive pastiche of familiar Christmas music or familiar tunes like "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year" sung by Andy Williams. "Cherry Pie" by Warrant plays an unexpectedly important role in this holiday-themed soundtrack.

Surviving Christmas Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• HBO First Look: Surviving Christmas (480i; 1.78:1, enhanced; 11:34): Featuring interviews with Affleck, Mitchell, Gandolfini, Applegate, Zuckerman and producer Jenno Topping. Given what's shown in the on-set footage, it's surprising that there isn't a gag reel.



• Alternate Opening (480i; 2.35:1; 2:19): It is unclear why this alternate opening is in a different aspect ratio from the rest of the movie. It's a similar montage to what now opens the film, but the humor is much darker, with many more suicides.



• Theatrical Trailer (1080p; 1.78:1; 2:34): "This Year Christmas Came Early. Like Really Early. Like October 22nd." And straight to DVD two months later.

Surviving Christmas Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Every film has its fans, and Surviving Christmas is no exception. Those who vibrate at the film's specific comic frequency can be confident that the Blu-ray delivers decent video and audio, although the disc is light on extras. For everyone else, rent first. If you're like most viewers, once will be more than enough.