Overall, the film will more than likely find that sweet spot between belly laughs and eye showers, which is good because if the film sided with either side too liberally, it would knock everything off balance. Ethan is a lonely, lazy mess who miraculously sees an opportunity to fix one of his biggest mistakes when he learns that his dejected ex-girlfriend Diana (Lizzy Caplan) is heading to the same party as him.
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As I say in my video review (click the link above to watch) this is pure Rogen raunch, blissfully, for much of the film, which predictably is full of hit-and-miss comic setups – although I have to admit the guy sitting next to me at the preview was in hysterics through the whole thing. Seth fans won’t be disappointed, but don’t confuse any of this with fine family holiday fare. This is his most manic film so far, and part of the fun of “The Night Before” is seeing just how wild a ride it is for the characters played by Gordon-Levitt, Rogen, and Anthony Mackie. His string of crummy temp jobs pays off, though, when as a coat-check elf he discovers three tickets to the Nutcracka Ball. Familiar year-end experiences – partying, romantic desperation, escapism, and heavy reckoning with the past and future – are amped up to absurd levels as three old friends try to get their individual and collective lives on track. Even so, they put their best faces on and head out for the evening, and all of them find themselves grappling with their own problems and with the changing nature of their friendship. This being a Seth Rogen movie (he also produced with Evan Goldberg and James Weaver), you can bet the drug and sex gags will be freewheeling – and they are. But one of the unquestioned highlights is when the boys come upon that giant piano Tom Hanks played in Big.
The basic premise of Jonathan Levine’s upcoming holiday (gasp!) comedy The Night Before has been evident since the first trailer for the film was released. There are a number of surprises along the way that really helps to make this a one of a kind film. For me though the film is stolen, lock stock and barrel, by Michael Shannon, absolutely riotous as their longtime pot dealer. Those pit stops feature just a few of the script’s many shoutouts to “80s and “90s pop-culture artifacts, which are sure to play well to Rogen’s (and the film’s) thirtysomething target audience, and which come across as authentic examples of these characters” inability to stop clinging to their adolescent pasts”. Sweaty and desperate, the actor is as amusing as ever here, destroying a Midnight Mass and exploding in I-can’t-have-a-baby tirades.
Photo: Courtesy of Sony Pictures. However, as those of us who have grown up at all know, staying in touch with friends becomes more and more hard as life hits you.
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When you’re making a movie that juggles this many different elements, you run the risk of it feeling overstuffed or uneven, and there are places where “The Night Before” wrestles with that.
