New Year’s Eve Review: The Celebrity Buffet

Maybe I should start off this review by laying all my baggage out there so you know where I’m coming from. I hate New Year’s Eve; not the movie, though I’m not a fan, but the holiday. Hate might be a bit strong of a word; maybe I just have no use for it. I can stay up until midnight any day I want. There could even be drinks. I tried not to let that sentiment cloud my thoughts on this movie. In contrast, I’m sort of fond of the ensemble romantic comedy genre and its entire cheese-filled premise. You don’t have to invest in an entirely implausible conceit for two hours. Instead, you can just indulge in several short, interlocking vignettes that, while maybe lacking in depth, are gone too quickly for you to question. They’re fun, sometimes mindless, but mostly fun. New Year’s Eve, from Valentine’s Day director Garry Marshall and writer Katherine Fugate, is not fun. It’s actually not a lot of anything.

Set at the beginning of the day on December 31, 2011, New Year’s Eve follows several interlocking and one standalone story set in New York City before the ball drops. Ingrid (Michelle Pfeiffer), discontent with her job at Ahern Records and disgusted by her usury boss (John Lithgow), quits. She bribes delivery courier Paul (Zac Efron) with tickets to that night’s Ahern afterparty if he can help her make all the new year’s resolutions she’s neglected for years come true. Sam (Josh Duhamel) attends his best friend’s wedding (Joey McIntyre) outside the city, and encounters some setbacks on his race back into town to give a speech at the company party, as well as meet a mysterious woman from last New Year’s Eve. Expectant couple Griffin (Seth Meyers) and Tess (Jessica Biel) visit the hospital and learn from rivals Grace (Sarah Paulson) and James (Til Schweiger) that the first baby born in the hospital in the new year receives $25,000, and start to do everything in their power to achieve victory.

Claire (Hilary Swank) is running the Times Square ball drop for the first time in her career, and let’s just say not everything goes according to plan. Costume designer Kim (Sarah Jessica Parker) wants to spend a traditional quiet evening at home with her daughter (Abigail Breslin), who instead wants to meet her friends out and share a first kiss with the cute boy from history class. Laura’s (Katherine Heigl) catering her first A-List party, only to find out it’s for Ahern Records recording act Jensen (Jon Bon Jovi), the fiancé who walked out on her a year ago. Randy (Ashton Kutcher) finds himself stuck in an elevator with new neighbor Elise (Lea Michele) after he tears down his building’s New Year’s decorations. And finally, Stan (Robert De Niro) spends his last day hoping to see the ball drop from his hospital bed, attended by his nurse (Halle Berry).

With so many characters and stories to follow, there’s no way this can all make sense, right? Well, it does and it doesn’t. I had two severe problems while watching that caused my eyes to roll uncontrollably at times and gesture emphatically to the patrons on my left and right as I slapped my forehead. One that I think many will agree with is that this movie lacked a core protagonist that all of the other stories revolved around. Valentine’s Day had Ashton Kutcher’s character, and He’s Just Not That Into You had the charming Ginnifer Goodwin. I can reach and say Marshall and Fugate were aiming for Times Square or even the holiday itself to fill the role, but if so, that doesn’t carry. Then again, maybe it was all set on Hilary Swank’s shoulders. And, if there’s one thing Swank isn’t, it’s likable or charismatic. More on that later.

My second issue was the way every connection seemed so incredibly forced. I can see the writing process in my head: come up with some stories and then loosely tie a lot of the characters together. Well, loose is the key word. Caution, a few brief spoilers will follow. The story of the pregnant couple links to no one, and I mean no one. It would’ve helped if it was at least the same hospital where De Niro and Berry were. Sarah Jessica Parker and Zac Efron as siblings is a suspension of disbelief that, while plausible, I’m just not willing to make without any back story. Some connections you’re waiting for never happen, such as Kutcher meeting up with best friend Efron at the Ahern party. There’s also a bait-and-switch near the climax that, while it wasn’t terribly obvious, failed on the follow through.

The principal problem with the general story is that we spend too much time with the least interesting parts of the tale, and too little to build empathy or any kind of dramatic gravitas for them to carry weight with the more interesting twists. Parker spends her entire story running through crowds until the final reveal, and Berry sullenly stares off-camera most of the time, just listening to De Niro before we can even guess if she serves the plot in another way. Pfeiffer’s character could’ve benefited from more of a back story. It also seemed like a tremendous amount of material was cut, which obviously needs to happen when your cast is so large. Duhamel’s Blackberry spends a considerable amount of time in a cup of rice, without ever having been dropped in anything. Alyssa Milano shows up for one line of dialogue that really could’ve gone to any other nurse in the scene, same for Cary Elwes.

For the most part, the performances were on point. I can’t really praise anyone, but I’d call them all, on average, adequate. Sophia Vergara, as Heigl’s colleague, plays the same jokes as she does every week on Modern Family. Michele sheds Rachel Berry for her time on screen only to play—wait for it—a back-up singer. Swank, who I always find unlikable, doesn’t disappoint in that respect. Efron is slightly over-the-top in his role, which matches Pfeiffer’s drowned out performance. You have to work hard to make me question whether or not I should be rooting for Michelle Pfeiffer. The whole movie I found it rather distracting to think of Bon Jovi as playing a rock star that wasn’t a fictionalized version of himself. Chris “Ludacris” Bridges has so little to do, I often forget he was even in the movie. As if there weren’t enough actors to go around, there’s also a slew of cameos, both related to starring talent and the holiday itself, including Hector Elizondo, Matthew Broderick, Ryan Seacrest and Penny Marshall.

For most readers, I’m sure the fact that this review paints New Year’s Eve as forgettable is no revelation. RomComs should be, at the very least, a fun poporn-y time at the movies, and Marshall and co. failed in that respect. I confess I would’ve seen this movie, despite any negative press, even if I wasn’t assigned to review it. So, I know there are those of you reading that I won’t be able to stop. Call it morbid curiosity if you want, but I sort of get it. Still, if you really can’t talk yourself out of it, try and wait for rental and assuage yourself with some of the award season hopefuls starting to pour into multiplexes at this time of the year.

Images courtesy of New Line Productions