New posts

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mel O&#039;Drama" data-source="post: 349145" data-attributes="member: 23">Christmas Eve (2015) <img src="https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.moviemeter.nl%2Fimages%2Fcover%2F104000%2F104673.jpg%3Fcb%3D1618588333&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=e8b1d756d9ee8566b789083ed225796e2125454e90a1ad0eacd836ff4c19b2e1&ipo=images" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="width: 541px" /> There were two surprising discoveries I made after watching this film that I'm glad I didn't know before watching.Firstly, it is classed as a "comedy", which I found odd because it wasn't funny. It felt more like an overly earnest attempt at drama with a few attempts at funny moments that mostly fell flat.Secondly, it appears to have been shown in cinemas. The thumbnail for the film on Prime looked very TV movie-ish, and this was borne out by the production values which suggested quite a tight budget. Indeed, I've watched many TV episodes which looked far more impressive than this.Based on the little information I had ahead of watching, expectations were low, and with that starting point it was at best a serviceable time passer.Other than Patrick Stewart I didn't know anyone else's name, though several faces were low key familiar and I was able to place a couple afterwards through some IMDb detective work.Many of characters were played as rather one-dimensional caricatures - especially the muscle Mary and the two vacuous young women with squeaky voices (I had some vicarious embarrassment moments watching the blonde woman. The actress's energy and delivery suggested she thought what she was doing was really funny when it really wasn't).Even those that weren't badly played were quite poorly written. The atheist was the militant, vocal type (which, to be fair, does exist). He is criticised (justly, given the way he's written), for wanting everyone to share his lack of faith. Then in the last act his redemption comes when he is forced to go against his own beliefs and pray with someone. Ugh.And that was just one of many predictable arcs: There's the man who's just been sacked and is stuck in a lift with the very employer who just sacked him. Patrick Stewart essentially plays Ebenezer Scrooge (again) who goes from giving his workers a hard time on Christmas Eve to realising...  well, you know how it goes. Most of his scenes are either soliloquies or interacting with faceless voices at the end of a phone line, which sounds wonderful but in reality they were quite lifeless and felt like a waste of his talent.Many characters were given a "thing", perhaps in order to be able to single them out in a sea of faceless characters. In addition to Militant Atheist and Bodybuilder With The Sensitive Soul, there's Smart Guy. And Mr OCD. And the one who spends most of the film furiously chewing gum while delivering dialogue which is beyond annoying. I think it's meant to be annoying, but that doesn't really doesn't make much difference when one is suffering through such unpleasantly intrusive noise pollution in glorious surround sound.The premise of most characters being stuck in different lifts across the city and forced to interact with either strangers or colleagues is a good one, particularly with New Yorkers having a reputation for avoiding eye contact and interaction with others (I've never visited so I have no idea how warranted that reputation is). It's a very intimate and theatrical idea that I can see playing out on a stage with minimal sets. The problem is that it ultimately feels like a play that hasn't translated well to film. And, static as it is, it feels a little like there are  too many different characters, a good number of which aren't particularly interesting. This dilutes the film and makes it feel less intimate than it should.In the last act, there's some attempt to [ISPOILER]tie some of the disparate characters in different lifts together by dropping certain connections into dialogue. These are a real opportunity for a few little intakes of breath from the viewer and the desire to watch a second time with these added new layers.[/ISPOILER] In execution, though, it's so clunky and unsubtle, that only my goodwill at the film's impending ending kept me from rolling my eyes.</blockquote>

Verification: Who played Sue Ellen in Dallas?