(I know who I‘m kissing when that ball drops….)
CAST: Halle Berry, Robert DeNiro, Josh Duhamel, Hector Elizondo, Katherine Heigl, Jon Bon Jovi, Abigail Breslin, Jessica Biel, Til Schweiger, Seth Meyers, Carla Gugino, Alyssa Millano, Michelle Pfeiffer, Zach Efron, Lea Michele, Ashton Kutcher, Sofia Vergara, Chris “Ludacris” Bridges.
DIRECTOR: Garry Marshall
WARNING: Some SPOILERS and some damn good reasons to party-hardy on New Year’s Eve - straight ahead…
IT’S LIKE THIS: Turned on by VALENTINE’S DAY’s $55+ million weekend opening last year, the producers and director of that ensemble-rom-com flick decided to give another holiday the same treatment. As in, tell a dozen or so love stories in one single night - and the special day they chose was… Groundhog Day. Nope, kidding. Obviously. Otherwise, this flick would’ve been called GROUNDHOG DAY, and we already know there’s a movie with that title. Nope, the holiday in question this time is… New Year’s Eve. And we follow a bunch of beautiful people in Manhattan as the hours tick away to the ball-dropping event in Times Square. And I don’t mean that kind of balls, memo to the perverts out there. Yours truly included.
Anyhow, our list of beautiful people include (but are not limited to): (1) Aimee (Halle Berry), a caring nurse who may or may not have special plans for midnight; (2) Stan (Robert DeNiro), an ailing patient who has some loose personal ends to tie up; (3) Claire (Hilary Swank), frazzled VP of the Times Square Association whose job it is to ensure that ball drops successfully at midnight - or else; (4) Sam (Josh Duhamel), dashing dude who met “the one” last New Year’s Eve and hopes to hook up with her tonight; (5) Kim (Sarah Jessica Parker), single mom dealing with a rebellious daughter; (6) Hailey (Abigail Breslin), Kim’s aforementioned rebellious daughter; (7) Laura (Katherine Heigl), frazzled chef who’s still trying to get over the ex who ran out on her; (8) Jensen (Jon Bon Jovi), Laura’s aforementioned ex who ran out on her, but now wants back in; (9) Randy (Ashton Kutcher), posturing hipster who gets locked in an elevator with Jensen’s back-up singer; (10) Elise (Lea Michele), aforementioned back-up singer of Jensen’s whose grave misfortune it is to be trapped in that elevator with Randy; (11) Ingrid (Michelle Pfeiffer), lonely and sad secretary who quits her job on New Year’s Eve and bribes a young bike messenger with party tickets to make her New Year’s Resolutions come true; (12) Paul (Zac Efron), young messenger whose task it is to make Ingrid’s wishes come true; and (13) Ryan Seacrest (uh, Ryan Seacrest), overly-gelled and overly-fake-tanned host of the Times Square New Year’s Eve Time Square Extravaganza. Or, rather, the New Year’s Eve Times Square Train Wreck, if that malfunctioning ball doesn’t get fixed in time. Bottom’s up!
THE DUDE (OR DUDETTE) MOST LIKELY TO SAVE THE DAY: Kaminski (Hector Elizondo), the near-legendary electrician who is tasked with fixing the sputtering Times Square ball. Because, let’s face it: if that ball doesn’t drop, the world as we know it will surely end.
EYE CANDY MOST LIKELY TO FIRE UP A WOODY: The entire cast is hot. But my faves are Josh Duhamel and Michelle Pfeiffer. These two win the King and Queen of New Year’s Eve award.
BEST PLOT THREAD: Ingrid and Paul’s storyline. Yes, she’s old enough to be his mother, and, yes, he’s young enough to be her son, but they’re more like friends, truthfully. And their platonic relationship still trumps all the romantic ones next to it. By a mile. Love these two (and the actors playing them - Michelle and Zac rock!).
WORST PLOT THREAD: Easy. The one with Randy and Elise locked in the elevator. Bo-ring. Ashton Kutcher plus Lea Michele plus Being Miscast equals Chinese Water Torture. Even if their scenes are only a couple minutes long each. Feels like an eternity. Worst fucking couple in the movie.
HOTTEST SCENE: Anytime Ingrid and Paul are onscreen. Like I said, I know these two are more friendly than romantic, but their storyline is the most alive and vibrant out of all the storylines in this crowded movie. Oh, a close second is the scene at the end where Sam finally meets “The One” - and we finally find out who this mysterious chick is.
INQUIRING MINDS WANT TO KNOW: So… how will New Year’s Eve turn out for our large cast of characters? Will Paul succeed in realizing all of Ingrid’s resolutions? Will Claire succeed in ensuring the Times Square party goes off without a hitch? Will Kaminski succeed in fixing that damn ball? Will Kim allow Hailey to party with her friends, unsupervised? Will Laura forgive Jensen and let him back into her heart? Will Sam give in to his heart and meet “The One” like he promised he would? Who is she anyway? Aimee? Claire? Kim? Ryan Seacrest? And the most vital question of all: will Randy and Elise do us all a favor and jump down that fucking elevator shaft already? And will someone please give Paul and Ingrid their own movie? Let’s keep our fingers crossed.
WHY YOU SHOULD WATCH “NEW YEAR‘S EVE”: If you liked LOVE ACTUALLY and VALENTINE’S DAY, and don’t mind your romantic comedies to be overstuffed with plot threads and characters. And if you love the holiday of New Year’s Eve - like I do. Par-tay!
WHY YOU MAY NOT ENJOY “NEW YEAR‘S EVE”: If you didn’t like LOVE ACTUALLY and VALENTINE’S DAY. Or if you like your romantic comedies to tackle one love story at a time. And if you hate the holiday of New Year’s Eve. If so, I ask: why?
BUT, SERIOUSLY: In 2003, the British film LOVE ACTUALLY was released and did solid business here in the States - especially with its R rating. Tracing the love lives of a dozen or so Londoners in the weeks leading up to Christmas, LOVE ACTUALLY managed to sidestep the potential pitfall of being too saccharine or precious - especially with that many romantic plot threads competing for attention. A lot of that film’s success had to do with writer/director Richard Curtis’s uncanny ability to be both snarky and sweet without those qualities canceling each other out. That’s a “lightning-in-a-bottle” gift, because it keeps the romance grounded enough to feel real, but also powerful enough to soar.
Indeed, the best threads of LOVE ACTUALLY were the ones that combined frosty drollness and warm emotion to perfect degrees: (1) Jaime (Colin Firth) slowly falling in love with his Portuguese cleaning lady Aurelia (Lucia Moniz) despite their inability to speak each other’s language; (2) Karen (Emma Thompson) finding out in a single moment that her loving husband Harry (Alan Rickman) is contemplating messing around with his secretary Mia (Heike Makatsch); and - the best one: (3) Mark (Andrew Lincoln), ignoring his best friend’s fiancee, Juliet (Keira Knightley), and treating her so coldly that she becomes convinced that Mark hates her - when, in fact, the opposite is true: he’s deeply in love with her, but knows he can never have her so he distances himself to protect his heart. Bottom line: Curtis imbues these story threads with enough acid to make the emotional pay-offs all the more satisfying. Especially the one where Juliet discovers via her wedding tape that the seemingly-icy Mark actually loves her: all of the shots and angles on the tape he shot are centered on her. Best scene in the whole movie.
VALENTINE’S DAY and NEW YEAR’S EVE are basically American attempts to recreate LOVE ACTUALLY’s successful template. Do they succeed? Well, frankly: yes - to a certain degree. They succeed in the sense that they don’t embarrass themselves. But they do not come close to approaching LOVE ACTUALLY’s striking blend of grounded wryness and soaring emotions. Instead, we get sit-com style jokes and many pat romantic storylines - especially with VALENTINE’S DAY. I actually like NEW YEAR’S EVE a little more than VALENTINE’S DAY, because it focuses on more than just romantic love, and other types of loves, and gives us some threads that are quite intriguing and atypical. There’s also an energy to NEW YEAR’S EVE that carries it over some rough spots and dull sub-plots, and guides it to a solid finale.
Speaking of dull sub-plots, it’s a given with a movie that juggles so many plot threads that some of them are going to disappoint. The most banal thread in NEW YEAR’S EVE is the one that follows Ashton Kutcher’s cynical hipster Randy and Lea Michele’s whiny back-up singer Elise while they are trapped in their building’s elevator and are forced to get to know each other. We actually groaned every single time the film cut to these two in that elevator. I can see what director Garry Marshall (PRETTY WOMAN) was going for with these two: a bickering couple who slowly fall for one another. This is a classic trope of the Romantic Comedy genre. Unfortunately, Kutcher and Michele have zero chemistry, and as a result, what would’ve been sexy smoldering sniping with the right stars, instead comes across as tedious whinging with these two. I can only imagine the magic that, say, Chris Evans and Mary Elizabeth Winstead would have done with these roles. I guess we’ll never know.
Another thread that doesn’t work as well as it should is the one between Katherine Heigl and Jon Bon Jovi’s characters. Heigl effectively conveys Laura’s confusion and trepidation at suddenly being in the orbit of someone who broke her heart, and she remains a lovely, expressive presence - as she is in all her movies. Unfortunately, Jon Bon Jovi doesn’t do anything special with his character of Jensen to make us understand why Laura would be hung up on this guy. And, as with Kutcher and Michele, Heigl and Bon Jovi just don’t have any chemistry. Heigl tries her best, but she’s the only one doing all the heavy lifting here. I don’t mean to sound harsh, but Bon Jovi is just too blank of a performer. Heigl deserved a more formidable partner.
There are a few other sub-plots that could’ve used more punch, but I don’t want to overlook the ones that actually do work. Such as the ones linking Claire, Aimee, Kim, and Sam. We learn that Sam met “the one” exactly a year ago, and they agreed to meet again on New Year’s Eve. Except we have no idea who she is - until almost the end. This adds an element of suspense to the film, and you will be constantly guessing as to who she is. Suffice it to say, I was second-guessing myself as the movie wore on. And a lot of this has to do with the clever way that Marshall directs these threads. It also helps that Josh Duhamel brings a truly sexy blend of intelligence, conviction, and humor to his role. If someone less charismatic was cast in the role of Sam, I don’t think this thread would be half as interesting as it is.
The best thread of them all, however, is the one that sees Michelle Pfeiffer’s lonely spinster Ingrid strike a bargain with Zac Efron’s much younger and peppy bike messenger - to realize her New Year’s resolutions. There’s a genuine sweetness to their story that would’ve been cheapened considerably or destroyed altogether if the script had forced them into a more generic romantic scenario. Fortunately, the script gives them a more atypical relationship, something between friendly and maternal, which makes it all the more interesting. Pfeiffer and Efron are pitch-perfect and their scenes together are easily the best in the whole movie. Every time the movie cut to their storyline, we actually smiled and looked at each other with delight. Indeed, I kept wishing that a couple of the weak storylines (like the ones with Kutcher and Bon Jovi) would’ve been axed entirely to give more room to Efron and Pfeiffer’s story - which is the main reason this film rises to the above average mark.
In the end, NEW YEAR’S EVE is a better film than VALENTINE’S DAY, but not as good as LOVE ACTUALLY. Despite some glaring weaknesses, the film has some real strengths to recommend it. And in the spirit of the New Year, let’s accentuate the positive and turn our back on the negatives. I love Christmas and New Year's for the very same reason I love movies and soccer - they bring the world together. And this movie celebrates that. And that's enough for me.
In closing, please soak in NEW YEAR’S EVE’s theme song, the awesome “Raise Your Glass” by Pink. My favorite song to run on the treadmill t0 - and it will be the song playing at my New Year's Eve party after the clock strikes midnight. Par-tay!
