How to make a saucy Christmas comedy
You may already have trudged through Bad Santa 2, but fortify your eggnog: There are still two more festive season comedies in the offing, Office Christmas Party (now in cinemas) and Why Him? (December 22).
The former is an ensemble piece about the title bacchanal with some extra plot thrown in, starring such decorum-trashing comedians as TJ Miller, Jennifer Aniston, Jason Bateman, Kate McKinnon, Olivia Munn and many others. The latter film introduces staid Midwestern businessman Bryan Cranston to his Stanford-attending daughter Zoey Deutch’s super-rich and boundaries-oblivious Silicon Valley entrepreneur boyfriend, James Franco. Both films try to do some new things with the hoary, holiday traumedy premise we’ve seen every year, for many years while maintaining ‘‘heart’’ despite ‘‘outrageous’’ humour. But don’t let that make you cancel your ticket.
‘‘The real challenge is we’ve all grown allergic to Christmas movies in general,’’ says Josh Gordon, who with creative partner Will Speck (Blades of Glory), directed Office Christmas Party.
‘‘They tend to be a little bit saccharine and simplistic for our taste. So what we really wanted to do was create a movie that kind of does ultimately celebrate the spirit of the holidays and is about that sort of coming together, but arrive at it through a kind of R-rated comedy that’s really made for adults. We think we’ve achieved that, but it was tricky because you have to balance the humour and the heart.’’
‘‘The audacity of Why Him? is the fact that it’s much more than a raunchy comedy,’’ claims producer Shawn Levy, who directs the Night at the Museum comedies. ‘‘It happens to have a lot of language in it, which is why it’s R-rated, but the movie starts and ends with characters as the priority. It’s about two men in this young woman’s life who love her to death and are willing to do anything to make her happy. So there’s a fundamentally good heart beating at the centre of Why Him? that separates it from comedies that are only concerned with being funny.’’
According to Speck, what really gives Office Christmas Party (OCP) its edge is not so much the dirty language and situations, but the kind of trouble most of us can relate to potentially getting ourselves into.
‘‘Josh and I have been to so many office Christmas parties because, while we were trying to be directors, we both worked in offices,’’ Speck notes. ‘‘They’re just rife with conflict and danger, and the one night of the year when you can live honestly amongst your coworkers – which is a good or bad thing depending on how you behave.’’
For Why Him? director John Hamburg (I Love You, Man), the project was a chance to be among the first to make comic hay out of a growing social trend.
‘‘What attracted me to the idea was doing a fresh, modern take on a classic premise,’’ he says. ‘‘It’s obviously a Father of the Bride, Meet the Parents [which Hamburg wrote] type premise, but the power dynamics of our society have changed so much, and I thought it would be really interesting to take that classic story but address what’s happening in our culture, where you have all these younger people who are running the world now. So this normal, mildmannered dad who’s been perfectly successful in life feels completely powerless against this guy who’s wildly wealthy and doesn’t live by any societal rules. That felt very modern and fresh to me.’’
Balancing raunch and the holiday spirit is never an easy job, though, no matter how cuttingedge your smart toilet gags are.
‘‘We started, very clearly, with an R-rated dysfunctional family comedy,’’ Hamburg admits. ‘‘I found the R-rating liberating for this story, especially for Franco’s character who lives in an R-rated world. Once you have that, then it’s about setting the tone. There were times when it felt we were going too far, it felt like we were pushing the envelope just to push the envelope. Hopefully, everything that ends up in the final cut of the movie is not there just to be extreme, it’s there because it serves our greater story.’’
OCP‘s Gordon echoes the tone and balance concerns.
‘‘You’ve got to know that what you’re making will appeal to adults, and you’ve got to make it appeal to as big an audience as you possibly can,’’ he says. ‘‘It’s always a challenge, when you’re making an R-rated comedy, to make something that feels like it’s inclusive and that it has humour for a wide range of people.
‘‘And that was really our goal, because offices are cross-sections of who we are, men and women and old and young. So we really tried to make a movie that was relatable to a lot of people and we think we achieved it, but it’s hard. There are things that at some times are at cross purposes.’’
And if that doesn’t say Christmas comedy, what does? – TNS ❚ Office Christmas Party (R16) is now showing in New Zealand cinemas and Why Him? (TBC) on December 22.