Movie: The Night Before
My Rating: 4 stars
I pretty much knew what I was getting with this movie going in. It’s another Seth Rogen and Joseph Gordon-Levitt flick. So it’s going to be a movie about a bunch of love-sick Millennials going through various existential crises while getting wildly drunk all over town. It’ll be a city-wide scavenger hunt for various hipster totems. Our heroes will find themselves in all kinds of wacky situations. They’ll take drugs they don’t intend to. And it will ultimately result in our pudgy, dorky heroes winning the hearts of girls who are way too hot for them. And, this time it’s Christmas themed! But, I still really liked this movie. It was exactly the kind of silly, madcap romp that was designed to appeal to people in my generation and socioeconomic class. And, I’m not going to apologize for that.
This is another one of those movies that I was totally intending to see in the theater. There was a whole period of time where I was off work, and going to the movie theater every day to avoid the construction workers doing renovations on my house. It’s not that I didn’t want to talk to them. It’s just that I wanted them to think that I had something to do with my time other than loaf around the house in my pajamas. But, this was another one of those movies that I failed to catch during the short window of its opening weekend, and then it failed to perform, and was gone from theaters forever. So, I had to wait for Netflix to stock it. And, it was still pretty fun, even though it was in the beginning of summer, and in the mundane surroundings of my living room.
This is the kind of movie that you’re either going to love or hate, depending on your tolerance for hipster mandchildren bumbling through their social lives, yet managing to get the girl and fail upward in their careers. If those people irritate you beyond reason, then this isn’t the movie for you. But if you’re willing to forgive these gentlemen for their privilege and shortcomings, and enjoy watching them have a drug-addled good time, then add this one to your queue. It’s silly and gratifying. And, it’s full of holiday cheer that’s markedly different from the maudlin, saccharine, moralizing garbage they usually plaster all over TV during the season. But, I don’t think that enjoyment of this movie will be universal. It’s definitely only designed for a very specific subset of American 20 or 30-somethings, and maybe only a percentage of those. But, I was charmed, and maybe you will be too. You’ll probably have a good idea based on whether you liked any of the other Seth Rogen movies. So make your decisions accordingly.