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Friendsgiving
An attempt to offer us something new in the way of holiday movie viewing, we have been rewarded with 2020's Friendsgiving, a pointless and tiresome holiday comedy that apparently is supposed to look at the power of friendship, but essentially offers sporadic laughs regarding California lifestyle and the ever fluid and ever changing rules regarding sexuality.
Malin Ackerman plays Molly, an actress and divorced single mother who has planned to spend a quiet Thanksgiving with her ex-girlfriend Abby (Kat Dennings), but those plans go by the wayside as Molly's guest list expands including her current boyfriend Jeff (Jack Donnelly), her ex-husband, Gunnar (Ryan Hansen), her married gal pal Lauren (Aisha Tyler), her husband (Deon Cole); three possible fix-ups for Abby and Molly's sexually uninhibited mother (Jane Seymour).
This comedy is the brainchild of Nicole Paone, whose experience as a writer is limited to documentary short subjects and this film is her debut as a director. Her inexperience as a director is apparent, but the screenplay is a lot more troubling than the direction. The film starts out pretty promisingly with the story of Molly, her new boyfriend, and her old girlfriend, but once all these other characters get thrown into the mix, interest really starts to wane.
The film has Ackerman and Ben Stiller billed as producers and Stiller seems to have gotten his money by providing a role for is wife, Christine Taylor, as a party guest whose jaw is wired shut and we're never told why. There are some funny pokes at New Millenium eating habits as all of the side dishes come out of the oven and have to be labeled "vegan", "organic", or "delicious" , but Tyler's trip on mushrooms and Kat's mushroom-influenced visit from the "Fairy Gaymothers" was where the film began to lose me.
Paone displays the beginnings of a directorial eye here, but she needs to find better material. An "A" list cast might have helped here as well, but I will say that Dennings and Donnelly steal every scene they're in, though their work isn't even enough to complete engage the viewer in this mess of a movie.
An attempt to offer us something new in the way of holiday movie viewing, we have been rewarded with 2020's Friendsgiving, a pointless and tiresome holiday comedy that apparently is supposed to look at the power of friendship, but essentially offers sporadic laughs regarding California lifestyle and the ever fluid and ever changing rules regarding sexuality.
Malin Ackerman plays Molly, an actress and divorced single mother who has planned to spend a quiet Thanksgiving with her ex-girlfriend Abby (Kat Dennings), but those plans go by the wayside as Molly's guest list expands including her current boyfriend Jeff (Jack Donnelly), her ex-husband, Gunnar (Ryan Hansen), her married gal pal Lauren (Aisha Tyler), her husband (Deon Cole); three possible fix-ups for Abby and Molly's sexually uninhibited mother (Jane Seymour).
This comedy is the brainchild of Nicole Paone, whose experience as a writer is limited to documentary short subjects and this film is her debut as a director. Her inexperience as a director is apparent, but the screenplay is a lot more troubling than the direction. The film starts out pretty promisingly with the story of Molly, her new boyfriend, and her old girlfriend, but once all these other characters get thrown into the mix, interest really starts to wane.
The film has Ackerman and Ben Stiller billed as producers and Stiller seems to have gotten his money by providing a role for is wife, Christine Taylor, as a party guest whose jaw is wired shut and we're never told why. There are some funny pokes at New Millenium eating habits as all of the side dishes come out of the oven and have to be labeled "vegan", "organic", or "delicious" , but Tyler's trip on mushrooms and Kat's mushroom-influenced visit from the "Fairy Gaymothers" was where the film began to lose me.
Paone displays the beginnings of a directorial eye here, but she needs to find better material. An "A" list cast might have helped here as well, but I will say that Dennings and Donnelly steal every scene they're in, though their work isn't even enough to complete engage the viewer in this mess of a movie.