The holidays are coming, and whatever holiday you do or don’t celebrate – I think we could all use some laughs. Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Anthony Mackie and Seth Rogen, bring the hilarity back into the holidays, and the touch of sentimentality is balanced by the all-out, crazy, gross, bacchanalian revelry that precedes it in The Night Before.
Directed by Jonathan Levine, the film draws on holiday tropes, giving them a naughty twist. This film about best buds on the brink of becoming real adults is framed by a fairy tale structure narrated in street infused rhyme. I think most fairy tales could benefit from that kind of delivery. In classic fairy tale mode, Ethan (Gordon-Levitt) was orphaned one long ago Christmas and his loyal friends, Chris (Mackie) and Isaac (Rogen), came to comfort him – “we’re your family now” and begin a different sort of Christmas tradition, utterly inappropriate and great fun.
This, however, will be the last guys’ night out, because Isaac – a lawyer expecting his first child with wife Betsy (Jillian Bell), and Chris – a football player who at age 34 is just coming into the glory, feel that the time has come to put aside childish foolishness. But before they do, they are going to have one last, great, night.
The Night Before is one zany adventure after another, referencing beloved Christmas traditions – the beautiful tree in Rockefeller Center, ugly sweaters, Charles Dickens, FAO Schwarz, Dr. Seuss, Tchaikovsky, Midnight Mass, and Jews eating Chinese food, while making its own special contribution to holiday lore: peeing in the freshly fallen snow, karaoke, Nintendo 64, a smattering of 80s & 90s pop culture references, the wonders of Craigslist and phone apps, F. Scott Fitzgerald, white Christmas with a capital C, and the mysterious Mr. Green.
It’s a fun film and Seth Rogen unravels spectacularly! Rogen’s misadventures and Mr. Green’s deadpan eeriness are a treat.
The Night Before
Directed by Jonathan Levine; Screenplay: Levine, Kyle Hunter, Ariel Shaffir, Evan Goldberg; Cinematography: Brandon Trost; Cast: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Seth Rogen, Anthony Mackie, Lizzy Caplan, Jillian Bell, Mindy Kaling, and Michael Shannon.
