Surviving Christmas DVD Review:

It might seem that Drew Latham (Affleck) has everything but when it comes to Christmas, even millionaires can get lonely. When his girlfriend Missy (Morrison) rejects his gift of spending the holidays in Fiji, Drew franticly searches for someone to spend the season with. Visiting the house he grew up in to recapture his treasured memories, Drew ask its current owners, the Valco family if he can join them for Christmas and he will give them $250,000 to do so but only if he can make some requests.

Ben Affleck’s career continues to be in freefall with one of the worst Christmas movies ever made.

Once the darling of Hollywood, Ben Affleck’s career has been on the slide ever since he grabbed the celebrity lifestyle and ran with it. As his exposure in the media spotlight became saturated, especially during his romance with a certain actress/singer, his career choices became a little suspect and the failures soon followed. ‘Daredevil’, ‘Paycheck’, ‘Jersey Girl’ and the bomb that was ‘Gigli’ came in quick succession, as the slide became a freefall. You would think he would talk to his friends or take a leaf out of best friend Matt Damon’s book and choose to work on more character driven pieces, so what does he do? He makes a Christmas movie!

On paper ‘Surviving Christmas’ might have looked a decent idea. If fact the filmmakers behind the film have gathered together an excellent supporting cast. Comedic actresses Catherine O’Hara and Christina Applegate are naturals in their roles and the presence of James Gandolfini only brings more clout to the proceeding but it is the casting of Affleck that makes the film almost unwatchable.

His role as millionaire Drew Latham is completely annoying throughout the entire movie. Affleck plays the character so that he is seems slightly unbalanced and overly enthusiastic but this just makes him irritating and crazy. He is not a man that you would let into your home, no matter how much money he offers to give you. The character doesn’t even grow throughout the picture making it impossible to see why Christina Applegate’s Alicia would even look twice at him, never mind fall for the crazy loser.

‘Surviving Christmas’ is just awful and the reason for this is Ben Affleck. His career nosedive can’t get any lower than this and it makes it so hard to remember that at one time he was ‘the bomb in Phantoms’.

Star Rating = *

PICTURE & SOUND

Presented in Widescreen 1.85:1 Anamorphic with a Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack, the transfer is good.

BONUS FEATURES

HBO First Look: Surviving Christmas (11.33 mins)
Director Mike Mitchell, producer Jenno Topping and stars Ben Affleck, James Gandolfini, Christina Applegate and Josh Zuckerman talk about bringing the seasonal movie to the silver screen. Covering the characters, the story, the family and the improvisation, this is a basic, slap on the back featurette that doesn’t explain why the film is so bad.

Alternative Opening Sequence (2.17 mins)
This is more of an extended opening and to be fair it is the best part of the movie.

Storyboard Gallery
View the storyboards for the ‘Trumpets’, ‘Suicide’, ‘Holiday tour’, ‘Airport Security’, ‘Breakneck Hill’ and ‘Ski Slope Sled’ sequences.

OVERALL

The DVD treatment isn’t as bad as the film but it still isn’t very good. A very short, pat on the back featurette, storyboards and an alternative sequence do not a great DVD make but they are worth watching to see Ben Affleck’s stupid enthusiasm for the project. He has lost it.



Jamie Kelwick