BEFORE: Well, the plan almost worked. Limiting contact with my niece and nephew delayed my getting sick, but apparently didn't prevent it entirely. I thought I had just a head cold over the weekend, but now it's morphed into some kind of flu. So no food for 24 hours, and lots of sleep - I was supposed to go back to work today, but that would have been a terrible idea. I got this film watched before the fatigue hit - or maybe this film made me sick, who's to say?
Linking from "Love Actually", Billy Bob Thornton was also in "Monster's Ball" with Halle Berry (last seen in "Die Another Day") - you didn't think I'd leave the last film of the year hanging, did you?
THE PLOT: The lives of several couples and singles in New York intertwine over the course of New Year's Eve.
AFTER: Very similar in style to "Love Actually", this film cross-cuts between four or five running plots, some of whose characters have connections to each other, and some of those are revealed only near the end of the film. So there are one or two "fake-outs" when we think we know who's going to end up with who, and then we are surprised (or perhaps not, if you're expecting the fake-out).
The last time I was watching films this late in the year was 2010 - I could have wrapped up the year earlier, but then I would have missed the connection to the two holidays. But there's a sort of symmetry involved here - my first film in 2013 was "Les Miserables", so I started with a crowd of people in the streets of Paris for a revolt, and I'm ending with a crowd of people in the streets of New York for revelry. (or, from one of the best films of 2012 to what I assume was one of the worst of 2011...) More symmetry and synergy in tomorrow's wrap-up.
For now, I have to judge this film on its own merits, such as they are - we've got a man and woman trapped in an elevator, a rock-star trying to reconcile with his caterer ex-girlfriend, a bike messenger helping an older woman cross items off her life list, a man trying to get to a party to deliver a speech, a single mother whose daughter sneaks out to go to Times Square, a couple about to have a baby, a man dying in a hospital, and it's all framed by the dropping of the ball and the woman in charge of making that happen. That seems like 8 separate storylines, except that it's not - it's more like 5 or 6 once you know what the connections are.
But if "Love Actually" had any message, and I'm not saying it did, it's that British people all need to get over their shyness and awkwardness and open themselves to the opportunity of love - but the point here seems to be that love is mainly based on proximity. All you have to do is get stuck in an elevator with someone, or be standing next to them on New Year's Eve, and love, or at least a kiss, will inevitably follow. I'm not sure I can endorse that message - but of course, that's what happens every Dec. 31.
Let me say, as a resident of NYC, the city that adopted me, I would never attend the New Year's Eve celebration in Times Square. There's like, a few million people there, and people get put into holding pens, treated worse than farm animals, and you have to get a good spot at, what, 9 am? Which knocks out your whole day, and what if you need to eat or use the restroom? I'm guessing you lose your spot. So that's a whole lot of inconvenience for a few seconds of party - you know that they show the whole thing on TV and you can watch it from the comfort of your own bed, right?
I suppose that if I was so inclined, I could point out that the older man dying symbolizes Father Time, and the baby being born represents the New Year - but I think that's a bit of a stretch, no? And there are several instances where forgiveness and reconciliation come into the picture, like the fired electrician who needs to fix the ball, or the rock-star who wants to get back with his ex, but it kind of seems like if you load up a movie with enough plotlines, you're bound to see a connection or two. People make resolutions, people kiss each other, people reflect, so let's just throw a bunch of that stuff together, who cares if it all makes sense, because the human condition rarely does.
Which leads me to wonder - if there were a technical problem with the ball dropping and it didn't work, would you say that the people in charge of dropping the ball really dropped the ball? So in a sense, they would have succeeded.
NITPICK POINT: It's the first baby born in New York City each year that wins something, and I think it's like free diapers for a year. It's not the first baby born in each hospital, and it's certainly not the amount of money portrayed here. Creative license perhaps, but a flawed message to send to the public.
Also starring Michelle Pfeiffer (last seen in "Dark Shadows"), Robert De Niro (last seen in "Limitless"), Hilary Swank (last seen in "The Next Karate Kid"), Ashton Kutcher (last seen in "Valentine's Day"), Lea Michele, Sarah Jessica Parker (last seen in "Striking Distance"), Josh Duhamel, Abigail Breslin (last seen in "Signs"), Zac Efron (last seen in "Hairspray"), Jessica Biel (last seen in "Total Recall"), Seth Meyers (last seen in "American Dreamz"), Katherine Heigl (last seen in "Knocked Up"), Jon Bon Jovi (last seen in "U-571"), Carla Gugino (last heard in "Man of Steel"), Sofia Vergara (last seen in "The Smurfs"), Hector Elizondo (last seen in "Leviathan"), Ludacris, Ryan Seacrest, Yeardley Smith, Til Schweiger (last seen in "This Means War"), with cameos from Matthew Broderick (last seen in "Tower Heist"), Cary Elwes (last heard in "A Christmas Carol"), Alyssa Milano (last seen in "Commando"), Larry Miller (last seen in "10 Things I Hate About You"), Common, James Belushi (last seen in "The Ghost Writer"), Jack McGee (last seen in "The Fighter"), Penny Marshall, Cherry Jones, and soon-to-be-ex mayor Michael "Benito" Bloomberg
RATING: 3 out of 10 pedicabs
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