Deck The Halls
Broderick x DeVito x Christmas
For this year’s Christmas film review i’ve accepted a request and it’s a doozy. Two men, one driven by an existential obsession so all encompassing it causes him to sacrifice all that he once held dear in a temple of madness of his own making. The second pursues the first and as he journeys deeper and deeper gradually loses all sense of himself and becomes unmoored from reality and everything he knows and loves. Is this Apocalypse Now? Well maybe, but in 2006 John Whittensale visited all of those these themes and more in the tale of yuletide mania that is “Deck The Halls”.
Like last year there are full spoilers, and in fact only spoilers. Unlike last year I can’t unreservedly recommend you watch “Deck The Halls” Last year’s pick “Road House” for all it’s silliness, in fact precisely because of that, is a *lot* of fun to watch. I can’t, in all good conscience, describe “Deck The Halls” as a good film. That said when I rewatched it I had an excellent time. Can I guarantee you will too? Not in the slightest.
A brief word at this point about the other Hollywood Christmas film the came out it in 2006 - “The Holiday”, which seems to have become pretty popular and because of reasons i’ve recently watched. It turns out “The Holiday” is two Hallmark Movies for the price of one, like mash up tracks that were very much a thing in the noughties, except in this case both tunes are by Maroon 5.
Hallmark Movie One is about a woman who’s unlucky in relationships and takes a break in LA for the festive season, she meets an aging and forgotten Hollywood star, learns about him and a whole lot about herself, and would you know it, finds love along the way - working title = “Lights, Camera, Christmas”. Hallmark Movie Two concerns a hard working career orientated woman, (unlucky in love and so emotionally damaged she hasn’t cried for years), she takes a break in the country where she finds romance with an implausibly handsome widower with two impossibly cute children, (aged 7-9), she learns there is more to life than work and weeps once more - working title = “A Tear For Christmas”. Those two Hallmark treatments are jammed together for a Christmas film that lasts more than 2, [TWO], hours. Jude Law has some nice pullovers though.
“Deck The Halls” on the other hand lasts a much more seasonally appropriate 93 minutes. What would Hallmark make of it? Let’s find out. We’re in the fictional “Cloverdale” Massachusetts - we’re talking well heeled rural suburbia in a US State renowned for autumn leaves, Harvard, Boston and liberalism. For reasons that will become apparent the film makers may just hate Massachusetts. There’s an early promising sign as it turns out the music is all composed by George Clinton, except the it’s not the mastermind of Parliament / Funkadelic, it’s George S. Clinton - mastermind of plinky plonky family comedy music. Either way we find out our “hero” played by Matthew Broderick is an Optometrist who just loves Christmas, he bumps into some clumsy Germans in town, one played by Fred Armisen, more about them later.
We move on to his home, where we meet his trope family, the wife is played by Sex And The City’s Kristin Davies, there’s two children eldest teen played Alia Shakwat (fresh from playing Maeby in the first successful run of Arrested Development) and the son played by a lad who doesn’t have a wikipedia page - important to note at this point that the children of the family must be older and sassier in a film like this (as opposed to impossibly cute widowers children required in Hallmark films and “The Holiday”) . Either way Broderick must be very good at testing eyes because their house is ENORMOUS (I may be doing his wife a disservice, the only information we get about her job is she edits cookbooks nobody buys).
We get a bit more background about Broderick’s intense love of Christmas before we meet his freshly moved in neighbours played by Danny Devito who needs no introduction and Kristin Chenoweth who you’ll definitely know if you’ve watched the West Wing. They live right next door in a house that’s also huge by any rational standard, but isn’t as big as Brodericks’ and more importantly Devito is renting the property and is a used car salesman, so you know we’re in for some class wars comedy. We also find out they have teenage daughters who are the same age as Brodericks’ eldest (15, watch out for that later for maximum ick). Oh and Devito’s family are called “Hall”, “Deck The Halls” see - lol.
As the film moves on we get into the meat and drink of it, it turns out not only does Broderick love the festive season, he’s “Mr Christmas”, he is “The Christmas Guy” and considers himself very much the biggest wheel at Cloverdale’s Yuletide cracker factory. But it turns out, (and you’re not going to be ready for this), that Devito has some pretty big love for Christmas too and that’s going to manifest itself in quite a few ways, and,…(you’re going to be even less ready for this), that is going to set up a rivalry between the two of them.
So how does this play out? Well a series of set pieces - first up Devito puts a lot of lights on house, this causes mild irritation for Broderick and a tetchy exchange, but not apparently irretrievable. An attempt at reconciliation does not go well when Devito hitches two frisky stolen horses with fake antlers to a sleigh, Broderick ends up in the sleigh and, inevitably, the horses go apeshit and the sleigh careens through town with Broderick on board (all of this is a set up to a nice sight gag with the sleigh flying through the air to the wonderment of passers by).
The set pieces keep on coming and the decorations on Devito’s house keep on getting brighter and more and more elaborate, in short his mid life crisis has manifested in an ambition to make his Christmas lights visible from Space, and he’s quite happy to steal electricity from his neighbours house to do it. Soon he adds in music and lazers, people travel from far and wide to see the show, even the local TV station arrives.
Meanwhile across the street carolers are desserting Broderick and his car gets ruined, (don’t ask) and his Christmas tree is nothing but a twig (also don’t ask). His crown as the town’s “Mr Christmas” has been well and truly seized and it looks like his mental health with it, so he decides to report Devito to the police for causing a public nuisance. At this point we get a, previously seeded, and, in a packed field, quite inexplicable joke about the local male police chief wearing womens’s underwear, I can only assume the writers were trying to channel Pat & Dave from Vic & Bob, either way this is enough to put Broderick off making the report.
By this point the gloves are completely off Broderick & Devito openly hate each other. This is all going to be resolved at the annual Winterfest speed skating competition, obvs. If Devito wins then Broderick buys a car from him, if Broderick wins the lights come down and his masculinity is restored. Before the big race we get some sights and sounds of Cloverdale winter fest, snowball throwing, slides and such like. There then follows a joke that requires quite some unpicking, because it seems Cloverdale Winterfest, (of which Broderick’s character is the chair of the committee), has organised entertainment including a ukelele orchestra playing “Dance Of The Sugar Plum Fairy”, so far so seasonal.
Immediately after that we have the “Santa Babies” three females doing a provocative dance. Now the joke is that Broderick, (encouraged & abetted by a catcalling Devito), starts shouting out “who’s your daddy” at the dancers and it turns out the dancers are, in fact, their daughters. But the questions really are a) Who, for a family friendly event in 2006 not 1976 decided to book Sexy Santa dancers and b) How did this happen when the father of one of them is the chairman of the organising committee?!
Devito and Broderick wash their eyes in holy water, and we cut to the Speed Skating race, the compere and hypeman is played by Jorge Garcia, (who at that time is in the middle of his run as Harley in Lost). Again like the entertainment this seems pretty difficult to compute, the entirety of the town centre has been turned into a speed skating rink at what has to be exorbitant expense, the “9th Annual” speed skating race which has required all of this set up has a total of 5, [FIVE], competitors: 1) The Mayor (who has two sticks, look out for them), 2) & 3) Our comedy Germans including Fred Armisen from the start of the film 4) Devito 5) Broderick (who has previous speed skating experience). The race starts, Broderick trips over the mayor’s sticks and has to come from the very back, he’s in the lead with metres to go and there’s a huge pile up and Devito takes the race. Would you believe it.
By this point both men are deep in the heart of darkness, Devito - now full Colonel Kurtz - has pawned his wife’s antiques and has turned his house into a Christmas Jean-Michel Jarre show complete with full real life nativity scene and a Disco DJ set up using two old school I-Pods. The set up gets so hectic the I-Pods start belching out smoke. Meanwhile Broderick’s Marlowe is so desperate he organises a clandestine meeting in a dark alleyway with the local firework dealer and hatches a “plan” to shoot them into the Devito household. In a surprising turn of events the plan goes awry - Devito’s Christmas light remain steadfastly in place and the fireworks end up trashing Brodericks own house.
We’re in the final act now, Devito’s family, having encoraged him in his mania have given him the flick and shipped out, after Broderick blows up own house his family do the same. At this point, for upwards of thirty seconds, we get a Christmas message as Broderick’s wife reads him the riot act about being less of a control freak and spending more time with his own family. Devito takes down his lights and both men mope around a bit.
That briefest scinitila of a heartwarming message is over in a flash, we soon find out that the true message of Christmas is, in fact, a *lot* of fairy lights. The lads call a truce and set up an illuminated path all the way from the motel where their families are staying and invite them round for dinner. And then, on Christmas Day, hundreds of townsfolk come round to Devito’s to reinstall all the lights and more, because - for reasons that are simply impossible to fathom - a lot of people seem to have become invested in Danny Devito’s house being visible from space. And, at the very end of the film, confirmed by satellites, it is visible from space. Roll credits.
So at the end of this journey into existential crisis, male pride and bright outdoor decorations what has anyone, most of all the viewer, learnt? Absolutely nothing, Jerry Seinfeld would be proud, Hallmark would be horrified.