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Ben Affleck, James Gandolfini, Christina Applegate, Catherine O'Hara, Josh Zuckerman ... see more see more... , Bill Macy , Jennifer Morrison (II) , Udo Kier , David Selby , Stephanie Faracy , Stephen Root , Sy Richardson , Tangie Ambrose , John "B.J." Bryant , Peter Jason , Phill Lewis , Tumbleweed , Kate Hendrickson , Bridgette Ho , Hailey Johnson , Sean Marquette , Caitlin Fein , Amanda Fein , Kent Osborne , Bill Saito , Michael Patrick Bell , Amy Halloran , Joshua Siegel , K. Troy Zestos , Sonya Eddy , Bernard Smalls , Ron Karabatsos , Wynn Irwin , Angela Gacad , Tom Kenny , Joan M. Blair , John Carter Brown , William Thomas , Karen Furno , Linda Kerns , Cynthia Marty , Melanie Taylor , Precious McCall , Anika Noni Rose , David Atkinson , Reynaldo Duran , Michael Kosik , Jon Simanton , Allison Queal , Kacie Borrowman , Alex Désert

Directed by Mike Mitchell, Surviving Christmas finds Drew Latham (Ben Affleck) uneager to spend another lonely Christmas in his own home. Longing for holidays past, Drew travels to his childhood home ... read more read more...intending to relive the experience of a family Christmas -- unfortunately, his family no longer lives there. This represents only a small snafu to Drew, who offers the Valco patriarch and his wife (Sopranos star James Gandolfini and Catherine O'Hara) a huge amount of money if they consent to pretend they are his parents and that he is a cherished member of the family. This entails participating in Latham family traditions, such as Christmas tree selection and crowded holiday shopping excursions. Though the Valcos reluctantly go along with Drew's requests, Alicia, their eldest daughter, arrives at home and refuses to comply with her "brother's" wishes. ~ Tracie Cooper, Rovi

Flixster Users

35% liked it

27,563 ratings

Critics

7% liked it

111 critics

PG-13, 1 hr. 30 min.

Directed by: Mike Mitchell

Release Date: October 22, 2004

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DVD Release Date: December 21, 2004

Stats: 924 reviews

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Flixster Reviews (924)

  • TheGame90
    January 29, 2012
    TheGame90
    This has Soprano...Applegate....and Ben Affleck (not so much...)....and it has some funny moments...But it just doesn't cut the mustard...
  • StarCrossedVoyager
    December 26, 2011
    StarCrossedVoyager
    An annoying and silly film which proves that Affleck should stay away from comedies. His character is annoying as hell which makes it difficult to watch but there are some funny moments and along with the message of looking after your family, it makes you feel a bit better inside.
  • fb733768972
    November 9, 2011
    fb733768972
    "Surviving Christmas" is not the most festive or creative in it's genre, but the good-hearted mixture of being with your family on christmas and how money can't buy happiness is portrayed, it great. It definitely does not reach any new heights in holiday cinema, but it is funny, ... read morewitty, heart-warming, and fun. I did scratch my head a few times at the cliches and over-the-top dramatic sequences, but overall, I think this is a fun family christmas movie that the entire family can enjoy. The reason I enjoy watching this film, is because it teaches everyone that being with your family on christmas is the most important thing, even if not in the way it is expected. Ben Affleck, along with the rest of the cast, is not powerful in any way, they are in fact quite cheesy, but the meaning compensates for that. "Surviving Christmas" is pure holiday fun, but that is all!
  • murphmann93
    June 23, 2011
    murphmann93
    I really enjoyed this film. It was a great Christmas film that made you feel happy. Ben Affleck made this film even better.
  • kiriyamakazou
    December 9, 2009
    kiriyamakazou
    Started shooting without a completed script and it shows. Surviving Christmas has it's heart in the right place, but slips on every ice covered step. It's about capturing the magic of Christmas that only the young can feel. Unfortunately it devolves into your regular comedy with ... read moremisunderstandings and "hilarious" consequences. Gandolfini makes the best of a bad situation, and there are moments when sparks fly. In it's defense, it isn't a difficult film to get through. Just not a great one.
  • FiLmCrAzY
    January 1, 2008
    FiLmCrAzY
    its an ok film not the best ben affleck has ever been in!!
  • YosemiteSamFan
    July 14, 2007
    YosemiteSamFan
    Good premise for a comedy. I don't know why this movie was slammed so badly - maybe October was too early for a Christmas movie to be released? James Gandolfini looks great with a beard.
  • mjgildea
    January 9, 2007
    mjgildea
    How Ben Affleck ever starred in another movie after this is beyond me. This movie gave me such bad diarreah that I almost died of dehydration.
  • mrbungle7821
    March 1, 2006
    mrbungle7821
    [center][font=Arial][color=darkred][img]http://img212.imageshack.us/img212/7113/photo018fd.jpg[/img][/color][/font][/center]
    [font=Arial][color=darkred][/color][/font]
    [font=Arial][color=darkred]Surviving Christmas was originally supposed to be released, get this, a whole year a... read morego for Christmas 2003. Paramount objected to the original release, saying it was too close to the release of their own Ben Affleck action flick, Paycheck (I doubt anything could have helped that turkey). So Dreamworks held onto it for another year and released it around the holidays. Halloween that is. The nation hasn’t even experienced Halloween or Thanksgiving yet, and we’re already getting a Christmas movie in our stocking. Given Affleck’s recent track record (the man hasn’t had a hit movie since 2002’s Sum of All Fears), audiences might not expect more than a lump of coal when his name’s above the title.[/color][/font]

    [font=Arial][color=darkred]Drew (Affleck) is a cynical ad executive trying to figure out his plans for the approaching Christmas season. He gives his girlfriend tickets to Fiji, but she expected an engagement ring, so she dumps him right there claiming he doesn’t know what family life is. Drew finds his old family home now populated by the Valco family. He offers Papa Valco (James Gandolfini) $250,000 for him and his wife (Catherine O’Hara), son, and daughter (Christina Applegate) to be his family for Christmas. Papa Valco accepts. Drew is a stickler for family tradition, and mandates tree shopping, hat wearing, dinner script reading, and sleeping in his old room. The family’s hostility begins to wear down but things get even stickier when Drew falls for the Valco’s daughter, and then his ex-girlfriend shows up wanting to see his family.[/color][/font]

    [font=Arial][color=darkred]The central flaw of the film is Affleck’s character. Drew is a jerk. That’s all there is to it. Somehow Affleck has become the go-to actor for arrogant, work obsessed men that desperately need to see that there’s more to life (Bounce, Jersey Girl, Forces of Nature). I think this is also the second or third time he’s played an ad executive. Surviving Christmas seems to exist in some weird dimension where a jerk shows us the true meaning of Christmas and family togetherness. What’s even worse is that Drew doesn’t change as a character, he doesn’t seem to grow, and the ending actually seems to reward him for his selfish, material, obnoxious ways.[/color][/font]

    [font=Arial][color=darkred]I like Affleck, I really do. I like his work in Kevin Smith’s films, and he can make a good action hero if given the right material (Say a Sum of All Fears, and not so much a Paycheck). The man is charming, he’s eloquent, and he’s self-deprecating and constantly funny. He’s the kind of guy you want to buy a beer. Now, having said all this, Surviving Christmas is Affleck’s worst performance of his career. Affleck can do comedy, and not just in a Greek tragedy kind of way with his life in the tabloids. In Surviving Christmas, Affleck mugs like nothing is sacred. His eyes bug out. He exaggerates near any expression, from his smug grin to his childish fits. For a man who has Gigli, Reindeer Games, and Pearl Harbor to his credit, it’s something when it’s said that Surviving Christmas may be his acting low point.[/color][/font]

    [font=Arial][color=darkred]Gandolfini seems to have been cast to play against type. He’s still got that flinty stare and slow simmer of anger, but he’s generally wasted. He’s the comic foil to Affleck’s jerk, and yet he still doesn’t come across that much better. His monstrous wooly beard is also mildly disturbing. Applegate brings more life to her love interest role than the role deserves. Her romance with Drew seems so spontaneous, especially given her natural hostility to him. The only actor that has any real moments to stretch and shine is O’Hara. A veteran of improv, O’Hara has some of the film’s funnier moments, like when she makes mini marshmallows with a butcher’s knife, or her wild photo shoot Drew arrangers for her.[/color][/font]

    [font=Arial][color=darkred]Surviving Christmas is indeed a chore to sit through. The movie, at its gooey heart, doesn’t know what kind of holiday film it wants to be. A good example is the opening montage of holly jolly Christmas sequences. In between standard, saccharine moments of feeling, there’s an old grandmotherly woman who bakes a tray of gingerbread men, with frosted frowns, and then sticks her head in an oven. Huh? Surviving Christmas tries to have it both ways. It wants to lampoon Christmas sentiment with the occasional touch of dark humor, but then it plays into a feel-good holiday formula complete with sled rides, tree lighting, and hot cocoa. The result is a schizophrenic comedy that doesn’t work being dark or cuddly.[/color][/font]

    [font=Arial][color=darkred]The whole wacky premise of Surviving Christmas screams sitcom, and the conventional proceedings and stock characters that follow guarantee it. The only way this could be more of a sitcom is if they drew a line down the middle of the house, the boss was coming over for dinner unexpectedly, and a pesky cat swallowed someone’s wedding ring. Surviving Christmas’ relation to a sitcom is the only way I can explain why the film has stale jokes about internet porn (What, there’s porn on the internet? When did this happen?). There's even horny old men and wedgie jokes too! This is a movie in desperate need of a laugh track. I kept expecting everyone to turn their heads and go, “[i]Dreeeeeeeeew[/i]!” and then Affleck shrugs his shoulders, bugs his eyes out, smirks, and the studio audience goes wild.[/color][/font]

    [font=Arial][color=darkred]It probably doesn’t help that Surviving Christmas is credited to over five writers and was directed by the director of Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo. The comedy rarely hits its marks because it’s so frustratingly tied up in its identity. The film wants to make incest jokes, but then in the same breath it wants us to listen to some syrupy back story explaining why Drew is the lonely, socially challenged jerk he is. The laughs of Surviving Christmas are mostly limited to broad slapstick and the occasional inappropriate remark. The preview audience I watched the film with seemed to be rolling in the aisles while I mostly rolled my eyes.[/color][/font]

    [font=Arial][color=darkred]There will be a section of the public that enjoys Surviving Christmas. Fans of Christmas cheer and broad PG-13 comedies may find laughs amongst the wreckage. Surviving Christmas doesn’t have the gusto to commit to black comedy like Bad Santa (a new Christmas classic), but it also doesn’t build its characters strongly enough for an audience to care about them. They’re all mainly jerks and twits. This is a Christmas movie that doesn’t know what stripes it is. How else to explain it coming out in late October.[/color][/font]

    [font=Arial][color=darkred]Nate's Grade: C[/color][/font]
  • panta2
    December 21, 2009
    panta2
    This is a different Christmas movie and that is one of the reason I like it! It is not made to please and enhance the "Spirit of Christmas" (which is nowhere to be found in average family) but to show us the funny side of all the bickering, pressure and stress which most of the i... read morendividuals can experience while failing the expectations of a perfect holiday season. There is a certain "evil" thread noticable while watching which is just adding to (lazy written screenplay) story. Not a great movie, but not a bad one either. It is not conventional and a lot of people don't like that when Christmas is the subject... I do!

View All Surviving Christmas Reviews

Critic Reviews

J. R. Jones
March 5, 2007
J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader

Pique on earth and ill will toward men permeate this mirthless comedy. Full Review

David Germain
March 5, 2007
David Germain, Associated Press

The movie is dead from the outset given the artificiality of the premise about a lonely rich guy who hires the folks living in his boyhood home to be his family for the holidays. Full Review

Peter Howell
October 22, 2004
Peter Howell, Toronto Star

Surviving Christmas is about as funny as a rubber crutch for Tiny Tim. Full Review

Mick LaSalle
October 22, 2004
Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle

Maybe the worst thing that can be said for Surviving Christmas is that it doesn't succeed even on its humble level of aspiration. Full Review

Joe Baltake
October 22, 2004
Joe Baltake, Sacramento Bee

There's a desperation to Ben Affleck's mugging in Surviving Christmas that, depending on how you look at it, is either endearing or embarrassing. Full Review

Lisa Rose
October 22, 2004
Lisa Rose, Newark Star-Ledger

Even though store shelves are stocked with fright masks rather than tree ornaments, Hollywood is offering its first yuletide romp of '04, and with it comes the risk of early onset holiday depression. Full Review

Jami Bernard
October 22, 2004
Jami Bernard, New York Daily News

Not since Scrooge got a look at Christmas future have the holidays seemed so shudderingly depressing. Full Review

Eric Harrison
October 22, 2004
Eric Harrison, Houston Chronicle

Is it just me, or does anyone else think it odd Dreamworks is releasing a Christmas movie before Halloween? Full Review

Robert Denerstein
October 22, 2004
Robert Denerstein, Denver Rocky Mountain News

Critics may be the only people who need to see Surviving Christmas -- and then only those who compile 10-worst lists.

Rick Groen
October 22, 2004
Rick Groen, Globe and Mail

Bear in mind the Yuletide lesson learned by every kid with an earnest aunt: Some presents look a whole lot like punishments. Full Review

Critic ratings and reviews powered by RottenTomatoes.com

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