New Year's Eve is Amateur Hour

Every year, my husband and I watch Love, Actually at Christmastime. We talk about how weird it is that 18-year-old Kiera Knightley is being stalked by her husband's best friend, and how Martine McCutcheon is in no way fat despite the movie's insistence that she is. We encourage Laura Linney to turn off her phone and have sex with Carl already, and my husband always tries on his British accent when Colin arrives in Wisconsin to find four hot girls who just love British guys. I'm aware that Love, Actually is deeply flawed, and yet I don't care. It's great. It's well written and well edited and the performances are excellent. I had always heard that its American cousins, Valentine's Day and New Year's Eve, weren't nearly as good. But New Year's Eve is streaming on Hulu, and this newsletter is coming out on NYE, and it's directed by Gerry Marshall and stars a bunch of actors I like. How bad can it be?

So bad. Like, soooooo bad. So bad that I want to study it like a plane crash to understand not only why it failed, but why they ever thought it could get off the ground in the first place. After all, everyone involved in this production is experienced. Literally, every speaking role is filled by a recognizable star. Like, there's a nurse who says one line asking about a patient, and it's Alyssa Milano. The nurse she's talking to? Halle Berry. The patient they're talking about? Robert DeNiro. His doctor? Cary Elwes. Every scene is like that. The combinations are bizarre and the collective star power is overwhelming. There's one plotline that follows Kathryn Heigl, Sofia Vergara, and Jon Bon Jovi. There's another where Hilary Swank is best friends(?) with Ludacris. Michelle Pfeiffer, the most beautiful woman on earth, plays a mousy office worker who hires Zak Efron to make her bucket list come true, and at no point does she reveal she's actually the most beautiful woman on earth. What is happening here? Why did all of these talented actors agree to do any of this?

And then there's the director. Garry Marshall directed some great movies in the 90's and 00's, including A League of Their Own, Pretty Woman, and The Princess Diaries 2. Maybe he's not an auteur, but the man knows where to put the camera. So why did he make the sort of blocking choices that would be laughable in a Hallmark movie? There's a scene where Abigail Breslin is sitting with her friends at a table, and when she gets out to talk to her mom (Sarah Jessica Parker, of course) she scoots over their laps like they are in theater seats. But they aren't! They aren't even in a booth! They are in individual chairs! Why wouldn't she just scoot back?

I realize this is an absurd thing to fixate on, but the whole movie is full of bizarre choices like this. Despite the star power, everything looks cheap and implausible. There's a plotline with Ashton Kutcher and Lea Michelle where they are trapped in an elevator, and the set looks like one you'd find on "Glee" or "That's 70's Show." Jon Bon Jovi performs several public domain songs for small audiences. Could they not afford to have someone write him a new song? Also, did they do a chemistry test with Kathryn Heigl? Because their plotline is supposed to be the romantic spine of the movie, and they have as much spark between them as the dead Time's Square Ball.

Even though this was, hands down, the worst movie I watched this Christmas season, I'm kind of obsessed with it. I'm trying to convince my husband to watch it with me, because I just need him to fully understand how bad it is. There are some things that work. Halle Berry shows off her Oscar-winning chops in a completely unmotivated scene with her soldier husband, overseas for Christmas. Sofia Vergara is funny and charming, despite having next to nothing to do. Oh, I completely forgot about another plotline that has Seth Meyers and Jessica Biel! It's bad too. Don't watch this with your grandma. Don't watch it with anyone.

And that's the end of this year's Christmas rom-com binge! I'll be back next Tuesday to recap the highlights and lowlights of the season. In the meantime, do you have any thoughts about what I should watch next year? Let me know!