Movie Review: The Night Before

Christmas surprises can be fun and all, but The Night Before is for those who prefer to open presents early.

Firstly, it arrives weeks in advance of December 25, and secondly, you know exactly what you’re getting just by glancing at the poster. No unboxing required.

Seth Rogen and his producing partner Evan Goldberg have made a cottage industry out of sweet-natured, salty-tongued comedies in which good-hearted man-children are given a safe space to say they love one another. Though the actors have been interchangeable—and only barely—the sentiment remains the same. Director Jonathan Levine added a tragicomic touch to the formula with 50/50, in which Rogen played the supportive yet nonetheless frequently-stoned pal of Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s cancer patient. Not so many tears are jerked in the trio’s latest collaboration, a goofy Christmas carol about three friends farewelling their adolescence (which has somehow stretched into their mid-30s).

Gordon-Levitt plays Ethan, an aspiring musician who was orphaned in the late 1990s when his parents were struck by a drunk-driver. To shake him from his doldrums, Ethan’s pals Isaac (Rogen) and Chris (Anthony Mackie) took him out for a riotous Christmas Eve celebration, giving birth to a new tradition in the process. However, 14 years might be the limit of their goodwill, with Isaac about to welcome a daughter along with wife Betsy (Jillian Bell) and a 'roided-up Chris suddenly courting stardom in the NFL. They mutually agree to one final hurrah, hitting their favourite karaoke joint, dancing on the big keyboard at FAO Schwarz and eventually breaking into the Nutcracka Ball, the most fabled Xmas party in all of New York City.

They arm themselves with a box of illicit paraphernalia (provided by Betsy), regularly reloading over the night courtesy of enigmatic dealer Mr. Green (Michael Shannon). The deluge of drugs and alcohol loosens their lips, with the three friends finally spilling their many feelings about their life choices. Not that the movie is simply about real talk amongst fading friends; most of it is about silliness and sex and accidentally bleeding into someone’s martini. Again, you knew what you signed up for.

Even more familiar than the picture’s brand of comedy are the faces that cycle through Ethan, Isaac and Chris’ wild night out. Lizzy Caplan, as Ethan’s ex Diana, pops up at a few of the boys’ destinations, literally haunting JoGo like a ghost of girlfriends past. Mindy Kaling plays her pal, while Broad City’s Ilana Glazer dominates the screen as a kind-of hipster Grinch. Literally everyone I've mentioned is very funny, though special credit to Rogen, whose Isaac begins tripping early on and holds a steady, paranoid mania for the remainder of the feature.

Of course, it should come as a shock to no one to say our three leads have been stretched more elsewhere. (Rogen and Gordon-Levitt all had dramatic shots at Oscar this year with Steve Jobs and The Walk respectively. Mackie, meanwhile, is probably just be relieved to not have to put on his Falcon suit.) All The Night Before requires of them is good chemistry, and that’s precisely what they conjure. This is an easy, cheerfully-predictable watch, credited to four writers but easily attributed to Rogen’s sensibilities.

Like Knocked Up and Bad Neighbours, The Night Before is about forging families in unlikely scenarios. And, like Superbad (penned by Rogen and Goldberg), it’s about celebrating the potential end of your formative relationships with one big blow-out. As Rogen and his creative contributors have aged, so too have their characters. Now though, their movies don't seem quite so fearful of the next steps of adulthood. At the end of Superbad, (craftily named) teenagers Seth and Evan effectively walked away from their friendship and towards an uncertain future. And yet, all these years later, Rogen and his buddies have found success by continuing to hang out together. If that alone doesn’t warm the cockles this Christmas, what will?

3.5/5

In cinemas now.

Rated MA15+ for strong drug use, nudity, sex scene and coarse language.