BEFORE: Ryan Hansen carries over from "The Turkey Bowl", naturally when I saw that one actor appeared in TWO of the Thanksgiving movies on my list, I just had to program them. That's a done deal, an easy link, like it was meant to be or something.
This is going to wrap up November, just 15 films watched this month but that's so I can save 10 slots for December, otherwise I'll be going stir crazy at home with nothing to watch. After this just 10 films to go, and here are the links that will get me to Christmas: Fortune Feimster, Andy Garcia, Rob Riggle, Jane Seymour, Bob Hoskins, Richard E. Grant, Helen Mirren and Amit Shah. Since Fortune Feimster's also in the next movie in my chain, after this film I'm going to watch her new comedy special on Netflix, because that will right into the chain, but will not count.
THE PLOT: Molly and Abby, along with their crew of close friends and acquaintances, host a dysfunctional, comical and chaotic Thanksgiving.
AFTER: If you watch TV this month, you're going to see a lot of holiday commercials, and I'm not talking about the ones for Reese's Tree-Shaped Peanut Butter Cups or the Hess toy truck or the ones where Santa Clause drives a Mercedes instead of a sleigh. I mean your basic retail store ads, for Best Buy or Wal-Mart or Amazon - I pay attention because I spent 15 years watching ads as part of my job, specifically looking for accounts that used animation, but really, tracking almost everything. The two biggest trends I see in the make-up of the pretend families seen in those ads are the inter-racial families, and the token gay couples. It's hard to find a spot these days that DOESN'T feature one or both of these. On one level, it's great, it's an acknowledgement that those families and couples are there, they exist, and they also enjoy holidays and buying material things. On the other hand, it also feels like pandering, like, "Hey, liberals, we see you, we targeted our ads at you, so please buy our stuff?" Naturally I'm split on the issue - and I should just fast forward and not think about it, but I can't.
This film "Friendsgiving" sort of feels the same way - the writers gathered together this extremely varied group of people in L.A., with a wide range of ages, ethnic groups and sexual orientations, which is similarly great, because those groups are being represented, those couples and families exist, they all enjoy Thanksgiving, too. But also similarly, it feels like pandering of the highest order at the same time. "Hey, lesbians, we see you, we put several lesbian characters in our movie, so please watch it?" Well, come on, who doesn't like lesbians? Sure, I'll watch.
I suppose ultimately it's a step forward because 10 or 20 years ago, if you had a lesbian character in a movie, then THAT'S ALL that the film would be about. Like "Go Fish" or "Blue Is the Warmest Color" or "Bound" or "The Incredibly True Adventures of Two Girls in Love" - the very fact that those movies had lesbians in them, that was enough, that was the selling point. How many guys (and gals) rented "Wild Things" just to see THAT scene? Now fast forward to the 2020's, and the lesbian character is just one messed-up person who's having a hard time finding romance, in a whole house full of people who are JUST as messed-up and having JUST as hard a time finding romance. You don't suppose...there's a whole city full of those people, isn't there? And it's called Los Angeles?
So I want to say it's "old hat" now, as a society we're so past the shock of it all, and we're ready to just move on and treat gay and lesbian people as, you know, people. But we're not, are we? Not when some groups are targeting drag shows for violence and shooting up gay clubs out West. Not when there are Arabic countries that paid billions to host a soccer tournament and they think they have the right to tell attendees to not act gay in public. Not when China can ban an entire movie just becase of a same-sex kiss between two characters. Maybe that last one's not such a big deal, because if people in China don't get to watch "The Eternals", that only affects Disney's bottom line, but in those other instances, people are still in danger because of who they are and who they love. There are the people who want big government to stay out of everyone's lives, except when it comes to policing things they don't personally approve of.
I'm getting off the track, because I'm here to talk about Thanksgiving, and Friendsgiving, which has become a celebration over the past few years for people who either can't go home for the holidays, or just don't want to. Perhaps there's a political or moral divide involved in some of those cases, but for others, it's just distance, and the fact that everyone ELSE is also trying to travel somewhere on the same day, so it's just a nightmare. You know, there's no rule that says you HAVE to celebrate Thanksgiving on the same day as everyone else - you could get together with your family the week before, or the week after, and in doing that, you've made the holiday about 50% easier for everyone involved, with regards to travel, getting the feast together, or making restaurant reservations. My wife and I haven't been out to a restaurant ON Valentine's Day in years, for that same reason, everyone else is trying to do the same thing at the same time.
Anyway, Molly's an actress who's newly divorced, or about to be. She's getting over her ex by seeing a new man, who ticks all the boxes, helps her with her baby son, seems very into her, only he doesn't seem to have a job, other than "philanthropy", which means he's got five bogus charities that probably all filter money into his pockets. Molly's set to spend Thanksgiving with her best friend Abby, who's that lesbian who broke up with her partner a year ago, and can't seem to start dating again, after learning her ex just got engaged. Abby's upset at first that she can't just spend the holiday with Molly, because Jeff is there, too. She eventually comes around on this point, but then wait, there are more friends coming over...
Molly's mother arrives from Sweden, unexpectedly. Her mother invites Gunnar, Molly's ex-boyfriend (she didn't know about Jeff, apparently). Then there's Rick, Molly's agent (?) and his new wife, Brianne, who's had so much Botox that she can't talk. Then there's mutual friend Lauren, who brings her husband Dan and their two children. And Lauren invites three more lesbians for good measure, in case one of them could be a match for Abby. Then there's Claire the sha-woman, and Gus, the token gay guy with the missing brother, and by then the small anti-family Friendsgiving celebration is up to at least fifteen people. Well, at least most everyone brought a side dish and/or a bottle of premium alcohol.
The party (and the movie) starts to go downhill fast once the 'shrooms come out - Abby fantasizes a visit from her three Fairy Gay Mothers, but it's very unclear how this dream sequence helps her in any way. She already knows her preference/orientation so what advice does she even need at this point? Molly's revelation, that her current boyfriend is nothing more than a rebound guy, seems a bit more significant. Perhaps she needs someone who can keep his shirt on at a party and can pick up a restaurant check once in a while. But in addition to trying much too hard to appeal to all the target groups watching, the film also tried much too hard to be wacky. I'm sure L.A. is a crazy place full of crazy people, but I don't necessarily need to see all of them being crazy in one movie.
You know what, instead of Friendsgiving just stay at home and eat a frozen turkey dinner. That's OK too. I'm off to Massachusetts tomorrow, we have to pick up a turkey dinner box that I ordered from a grocery store and get ready to visit my parents on Thursday and deliver it. The holiday is kind of a meals-on-wheels mission for us now. Sure, I COULD get the whole fresh turkey and cook it with all the sides, but this will be much easier. I'll be back with another post on December 1 to start the countdown to Christmas.
Also starring Malin Akerman (last seen in "I'll See You in My Dreams"), Kat Dennings (last seen in "Thor; Love and Thunder"), Jane Seymour (last seen in "The Female Brain"), Aisha Tyler (last seen in "Bedtime Stories"), Chelsea Peretti (last heard in "Sing 2"), Christine Taylor (last seen in "Zoolander 2"), Deon Cole (last seen in "The Harder They Fall"), Wanda Sykes (last seen in "The One and Only Dick Gregory"), Margaret Cho (last seen in "Conan O'Brien Can't Stop"), Fortune Feimster (last heard in "Soul"), Jack Donnelly, River Butcher, Andrew Santino (last seen in "Dean"), Dana DeLorenzo (last seen in "A Very Harold & Kumar Christmas"), Rose Abdoo (last seen in "Other People"), Carla Jimenez (last seen in "The Purge: Anarchy"), Scout Durwood, Brianna Baker, Joe Lando, Serenity Reign Brown, Mike Rose, Karen Y. McClain, Nadya Ginsburg, Johnny Williams (last seen in "Green Book"), Kenneth Sims, Vladimir Perez, Melissa Graver.
RATING: 3 out of 10 props for the photo booth
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