The Night Before is a Christmas movie about Christmas movies. It’s also Seth Rogen’s latest ode to the enduring power of male friendship despite the roadblocks you encounter as you grow older. It’s also a stoner comedy. It’s also one long joke about what it’s like to be Jewish on Christmas eve. It’s all of those things, really, but with the story being torn in so many different directions The Night Before doesn’t entirely hold together. To be fair, in the limited pantheon of raunchy Christmas comedies The Night Before does take itself more seriously than something like A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas, and there are laughs to be had, as long as you are a fan of Rogen’s distinct brand of comedy. If not, seriously, don’t see this movie.
We begin with Tracy Morgan, of all people, providing storybook-like narration, forcing rhymes left and right as he sets up the premise of the film. In 2001, Ethan (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) lost both of his parents around Christmas, and to help him through the grieving process on Christmas eve his two best friends, Isaac (Seth Rogen) and Chris (Anthony Mackie), took him for a night on the town in New York City, thus beginning an annual tradition. Every Christmas eve, they recreate that same night on the town (wear ugly Christmas sweaters, see the tree in Rockefeller Center, go to the same Chinese restaurant, karaoke bar, etc.). Somewhere along the way they caught wind of a near-mythic secret party called The Nutcracker’s Ball, where the drugs are plentiful and you’re guaranteed to get laid. It has been their quest to find that party, but as the years passed Isaac and Chris grew up. The former got married (and his wife is pregnant now), and the latter saw his professional sports career take off. They’re ready to end the tradition, but, almost Willy Wonka style, Ethan finds three tickets to The Nutcracker’s Ball on the eve of their final Christmas eve together.
As premises go, “one last crazy night on the town” is a good starting point, and it re-teams Gordon-Levitt and Rogen with their 50/50 director Jonathan Levine. Anthony Mackie, who seems to be overflowing with charisma, is an interesting addition to the mix. The film is aware that a jock like Chris wouldn’t typically be friends with guys like Isaac and Ethan, and that ultimately pays off in a nice mid-movie “Do you remember how we all became friends?” conversation. Gordon-Levitt, Rogen and Mackie all have an easygoing chemistry together as well as a lived-in quality to their friendship, suggesting a long, emotionally complicated history.
However, is it time for Rogen to find a new story to tell? From Knocked Up to Superbad to This Is the End to The Night Before, you see a pattern of a writer-actor who is continually drawn to stories of friends being torn apart and/or guys resisting the next stage of life, be it college or parenthood. To be fair, he doesn’t always co-write his own movies. For example, he’s not among the credited screenwriters for 50/50, Neighbors or The Night Before. However, his filmography often reads like “Seth Rogen realized how much it sucks to go to a different college than your best friend from high school” (Superbad) or “Seth Rogen realized how easy it is to drift apart from best friends as you get older” (This is the End) or “Seth Rogen realized how daunting it is to be a new parent because that means you are now officially an adult” (Neighbors). That places Night Before squarely in the pantheon of Rogen projects, but it almost feels too familiar.
In balance, Chris’ part of the story feels a tad undercooked, kind of like the type of thing the four white guys who wrote the script figure a black athlete would be going through. Mackie makes the most of it, though. Elsewhere, Joseph Gordon-Levitt can pretty much play “Guy who needs to mature and grow up” in his sleep [see: (500) Days of Summer, Don Jon], and Rogen, well, to be honest Rogen’s character is high on some drug or another throughout almost the entire run of this movie. There are several moments where his drug trips provide insight into his pre-baby anxities, but for the most part he’s the comic relief, all funny facial expressions, hallucinations and imagined conversations.
Seth Rogen and his friends have grafted their brand of guy humor and male bonding drama to specific genres before, be it the drug-deal-gone-bad (Pineapple Express) or disaster/apocalypse story (This is the End). This same formula has been applied to the Christmas movie with The Night Before, and it actually works better than it should. I just don’t know how necessary it actually was to the story. Three guys having a night on the town on Christmas Eve was all the Christmas movie I needed from The Night Before. That being said, there is a cleverness to their updating of A Christmas Carol, specifically the way Chris is the one concerned about the present, Ethan’s clearly stuck in the past and Isaac is terrified of the future.
THE BOTTOM LINE
The emotions in A Night Before, however predictable and overly familiar if you’ve ever seen a Seth Rogen movie, worked for me. The laughs, on the other hand, well, not to be a Grinch, but I didn’t laugh nearly as much during this movie as I was probably supposed to. The whole thing is far too uneven to consistently amuse. Ultimately, BBC film critic Mark Kermode has a rule for comedies: If it makes you laugh at least five times, it’s done it’s job. For me, The Night Before passes the test, but juuuuust barely.
THE CRITICAL CONSENSUS
67% – The Night Before provokes enough belly laughs to qualify as a worthwhile addition to the list of Christmas comedies worth revisiting, even if it isn’t quite as consistent as the classics.
THE SET VISIT
SlashFilm visited the set, where Rogen told them, “I think at first we were shying away from [Christmas movies] a little bit and not fully embracing, like it’s a fucking Christmas movie.” However, they eventually leaned into those tropes, with Mackie admitting, “We definitely went full Christmas.” I think Rogen would have been better off trusting his initial instincts.