And Ethan (Gordon-Levitt) is the inspiration for their annual ritual, the one who loves it desperately because he has the least going on outside of their friendship. Michael Shannon is a morose delight in that role, acting as both one of the film’s strangest comic elements and its primary grounding force. With Mackie’s Chris on the verge of becoming a very famous actor and Rogen’s Isaac set to become a father, the trio get together to make their final Christmas outing the most epic yet – which includes locating the Nutcracker Ball, a mysterious super-bash that’s proven incredibly elusive throughout the years. While females are merely around to help facilitate their male counterparts’ transformations, this boys-will-be-boys saga is buoyed by its cast’s uninhibited enthusiasm for sex-and-weed-and-bodily-fluids madness – as well as by a score chockablock with holiday standards, and visuals awash in warm, twinkling lights, that cast a simultaneously vulgar, heady and heartfelt seasonal spell. His fan-indulging bluster meshes nicely with Rogen’s outsized druggie daftness, as well as the aw-shucks mopiness of Gordon-Levitt, here condemned to be the unfunny straight man. Ethan’s desperate desire to cling to this Yuletide-partying procedure stems from his fear of losing touch with his surrogate brothers, just as his refusal to meet Diana’s parents – the cause of their separation – speaks to his terror over the changes that might come from acting his age. It takes a look at three old friends and a wild night that they will remember for the rest of their lives.
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Rogen’s storyline made me laugh like a lunatic at times. The film lives feeding into these individual plots each tapped off with a hefty dose of madcap weirdness and by the end youre not only exhausted from laughing so much, but also feel a wonderful satisfaction in the complete nature of the narrative. Rogen plays Isaac, a married man whose wife is now pregnant. There are many moments that only worked so well because these three guys play off of each other perfectly.
A few of the incidental gags land soft. Mindy Kaling is mostly squandered as a friend of Ethan’s ex. But Ilana Glazer steals scenes as a big-screen analog to her “Broad City” character – one possessed of even more crazed impulsiveness than her small-screen counterpart.
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The go-for-broke zip of the film’s high points, when slowed down to navigate heavier emotional territory, doesn’t turn into a nimble step. Once the drugs and the insecurities really kick in, “The Night Before” takes on a sickly pall that even leans towards stressful. There’s the comedy of awkwardness and anxiety, and then there’s Seth Rogen, wrapped in a Hannukkah sweater, Psilocybin all but dripping from his pores, as he clings to the edge of sanity during a Christmas Eve mass in front of his in-laws.
