Probably
the best thing I can say about this movie is that it’s slightly less
predictable than I thought it was going to be.
I remember seeing the previews for it and mainly thinking, “Why, Bryan
Cranston, why?” However, while I
wouldn’t call it great, or even good, it’s not as bad as it looks.
Ned, a
solid middle-America type, is extremely discomfited when he, his wife, and his
son are invited to spend Christmas in California, meeting his college-age
daughter’s older boyfriend, Laird. Ned
likely would’ve been predisposed against anyone his daughter is sleeping with,
but Laird’s clear efforts to endear himself to Ned have anything but the
desired result. The more Ned sees of
Laird, the more he wonders how his “little girl” could possible be into someone
like this guy.
Laird
hits some of the major notes that I expected from the trailers – he’s
copiously-tattooed (something a straitlaced guy like Ned is bound to dislike)
and vulgar, both in his general language and in his extreme openness about his
and Cassie’s sex life. But I’d assumed
from the promos that Laird was something of a waster, and that’s far from
true. Instead, he’s a video-game mogul,
a genius coder and eccentric multi-millionaire.
Ned is super uneasy in Laird’s world at large, with his microgastronomy
chef, his smart toilet, and his holiday rager featuring “deconstructed eggnog,”
and a good portion of the humor comes from the contrast between Ned’s square
sensibilities and Laird’s lavish hipster exploits.
But
despite surprising me a little, the film is pretty aggressively so-so. It features a talented cast – among them
Bryan Cranston and Megan Mullally – most likely doing it for the paycheck. I wouldn’t say anyone is phoning it in, but
there’s little of note. The only actor
really rising above the material and making it work is Keegan-Michael Key as
Gustav, Laird’s estate manager. Gustav
is unabashedly weird and slavishly devoted to his job – from talking Ned
through the operation of the smart toiler to fake-ambushing Laird in the name
of practicing his self-defense skills, Gustav will do whatever is required of
him.
I do have
to mention that Laird is played by James Franco. As an actor, he didn’t make
much of an impression on me in the Spider-Man
trilogy, but I really enjoyed his work in 127
Hours. More recently, though, he’s of course been the subject of sexual harassment allegations, particularly surrounding his behavior with female
students at a film school he started. He’s been accused of using his power to
take advantage of aspiring actresses’ desire to further their careers, and that’s
gross.
Andrew
Rannells’s part is very small – I’d call it a cameo, but I’m not sure if he’s
famous enough for that. He plays Blaine
Pederman, one of several friends of Laird’s who only appear in one significant
scene at a party. The point of the
character is that he and his sister Missy (played by Casey Wilson) run a
successful e-card company, which just so happens to be running Ned’s print shop
out of business. The main joke here is
that Blaine and his sister are disturbingly close.
There are
some amusing bits. Rannells and Wilson
have a good back-and-forth together (honing the comedic chemistry they’d later
bring to Black Monday!) – I laughed
at them matter-of-factly telling Laird, “Our mother didn’t breastfeed us,” “You
know we had a wet nurse,” and there’s
a silly shot of them grinding together at the party. Personally, I think the two play the vibe
between them pretty well. There’s a fine
line between “weirdly close for siblings” and “blatantly incestuous,” and they
do a good job straddling it in their brief screentime.
Recommend?
In
General
– No. Keegan-Michael Key is funny, but
when my best compliment for the film is “not as bad as I thought it’d be,”
that’s not worth it, particularly given Franco’s involvement.
Andrew
Rannells
– Naw. There’s just not enough of him
here to write home about.
Warnings
Tons of
swearing, sexual content, drinking/drug use, and gross-out humor.
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