Review: Surviving Christmas

Posted by: Tom Milroy  •  October 22, 2004 @ 11:59am

Filed under: Reviews

As far as Ben Affleck movies go, Surviving Christmas is pretty good. Let's face it, after Gigli and Jersey Girl, Ben could use a hit.

Directed by Mike Mitchell, the man behind Deuce Bigalow, Surving Christmas has a simple plot: trying to recapture his youth, Affleck's character Drew checks out his childhood home, then offers the occupants $250,000 to let him spend time there over the holidays. James Gandolfini and Catherine O'Hara are the parents to Brian and Alicia, played by Josh Zuckerman and Christina Applegate.

There are some funny scenes, but funny in a TV sitcom kind of way. It's also a little puzzling to see Gandolfini play Affleck's "father": Gandolfini is 43, Affleck is 32. But hey, this is a movie, not a documentary. Veteran actor Bill Macy has a funny turn as Doo-Dah, an actor hired by Drew to play his grandfather.

Surviving Christmas is worth checking out, it's just not a replacement for National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation or the 1951 version of A Christmas Carol. And maybe it's just me, but shouldn't Christmas movies be released after Halloween???