New Year’s Eve (**½)
Directed by: Garry Marshall
Starring: Hilary Swank, Josh Duhamel, Zac Effron, Ashton Kutcher, Robert
De Niro,Michelle Pfeiffer, Til Schweiger, Jessica Biel, Sarah Jessica Parker, Halle
Berry, Katherine Heigl, Jon Bon Jovi, Sofia Vergara, Abigail Breslin, Chris
Bridges, Hector Elizondo, Seth Meyers, Sarah Paulson, Lea Michele, James
Belushi, Cary Elwes, Carla Gugino, John Lithgow, Alyssa Milano, Russell Peters,
Ryan Seacrest
Seen: December 10th 2011
**½
Out of ****
New Year’s Eve is not a movie so much as it is a series of cameos by all
of Hollywood. The 2-hour movie contains such a plethora of small stories that
not one of them can get more than 10 minutes screen-time, it’s a collection of
short-stories. The connections between these stories aren’t always great or
that surprising, but they’re there, at least creating the illusion that an
attempt was made at a larger coherence – the movie is basically a slice out of
a lot of peoples’ New Year’s Celebrations.
The lengthy paragraph following here is a short summary of these
stories, and the movie continuously switches between them all:
Claire (Swank), Times Square Alliance VP, must make sure the ball drops
at 12:00, her friend Brandon (Bridges) helping out on a last minute glitch that
can only be resolved by the legendary Kominsky (Elizondo). The timid secretary Ingrid
(Pfeiffer), fed up with her vapid boss (Lithgow) quits her job and offers the
suave deliveryman Paul (Efron) a sweet reward to help her with her resolutions.
Meanwhile Paul’s friend Randy (Kutcher), a comic book illustrator with an
irrational hate of the holiday gets stuck in an elevator with the singer Elise
(Michele), on her way to perform as back-up singer for Jensen (Bon Jovi), who almost
doesn’t perform because of a broken heart about Laura (Heigl), furious with him
for walking out on her a year earlier. Laura is a chef for a large function,
and her sou chef Ava (Vergara – an extension of her character in the brilliant
TV comedy Modern Family) has a huge crush on Jensen. Paul’s sister Kim (Parker)
is set on staying at home, forcing her daughter Hailey (Breslin) to do the
same, but Hailey has other plans, as 15-year olds do. Stan (De Niro) is on his
deathbed at the end of his fight with cancer, and his last wish is to see the
ball drop, with his doctor (Elwes) refusing and his nurse, Aimee (Berry), more
understanding. Griffin (Meyers) and Tess (Biel) are about to have their first
child, and they literally compete with James (Schweiger) and Sarah (Paulson)
for the hospital’s prise for the first baby born in the new year.
If you can’t find an actor/actress you like in New Year’s Eve, you don’t
like anyone in Hollywood at all; with the converse also true: Sarah Jessica
Parker is, at least to me, akin to fingernails down a blackboard, with
Katherine Heigl not far behind… Love Actually did something that many will
attempt to reproduce for a long time to come, but will take something exceptional
to achieve. New Year’s Eve is basically a different-day version of Valentine’s
Day, which I’d say it falls slightly below when ranking the two movies. There are
some feel good and some real emotional moments, but when you think of it for a
little while longer it’s clear that these are so emotional because of overt
manipulation, and not necessarily because of good writing. Thing is, they work
while watching the movie, and while this movie will never come close to awards
material, it is not that bad a way to spend a few holiday hours.
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