Oh. What. Fun. - Michelle Pfeiffer, Christmas, an all-star cast. It *must* be fun, right?

0:06Hello and welcome to Bah Humbug, the Christmas movies podcast that would quite like to live in some of these characters' houses. Not like in the walls in like a creepy way, just like in general, like if they were my house. Look, I'm going to stop there. Hello, I am Helen O 'Hara, I'm your host and I'm back once again to talk about another of this year's crop of Christmas movies. This one has proper actual stars in it. It's on Prime Video on December 3rd. It's called Oh What Fun. And this is Michelle Pfeiffer in, I think, her first Christmas movie since Batman Returns. So, you know, big cat's boots to fill there for that one.

0:46And I'm delighted to be joined today by Kathy Cullen from the Cinemile, a good friend of the podcast coming along to discuss this film hello Kathy happy Christmas how you doing hello Helen happy Christmas thanks for having me back I think this is my third rodeo with Bah Humbug so please be here it wouldn't be Christmas without you no I was so excited you said this is Michelle Pfeiffer Christmas movie I said sign me up and then you watched the film and apparently we're slightly less impressed but let's just set the scene for this one so this is directed by again a proper person. This is directed by Michael Schwalzer, who did the Wet Hot American Summer series.

1:25You know, he's worked with proper people. He did Search Party. He did The Big Sick, which is a genuinely good movie. He did The Eyes of Tammy Faye, which won Oscars, for goodness sake. And this one has Michelle Pfeiffer as the long-suffering sort of mother of a Texas clan. She is married to Dennis Leary, not a couple I would have put together back in the 90s. Her kids are played by Felicity Jones, Chloe Grace Moretz, Dominic Sessa. And she has basically been after these kids to nominate her for a sort of mom of the year award. I'm trying to speak American with the mom instead of mom. And they have completely failed to do so and all come home with their own problems.

2:05And this all adds insult to injury until one day they all forget her when they head off to see a concert that she has booked tickets for and she basically goes you know what enough gets in her car and drives and ends up in la on eva longoria's oprah style show trying to befriend her tv hero basically so it's meant as i think a tribute to and perhaps a warning about the overworked moms or moms of the world right i think that i think the film just that bit about the overworked moms not being acknowledged i feel like we're about 10 years too late on that one yes and it i think the film thought it thinks that it's like very revelatory like oh my god women do all the work at christmas it's like we know so i found that bit of it interesting but that it's funny because you had told me michelle pfeiffer was in it was a christmas movie i said I'm sold so I didn't know who else was in it I didn't know the plot like I looked up nothing so I watched the film totally cold yesterday and I brought my little sister along to watch it with me it takes a long time for that plot to kick in that you referenced there so for a long time we're just kind of in with Michelle Pfeiffer and with her family and I found it it took a long time to get anywhere and I actually I was surprised I was really surprised when like felicity jones showed up when i saw some names in the credits but i didn't recognize felicity jones with a fringe with the american accent jason schwartzman showed up chloe grace moretz and i seem like you i'm like oh these are proper actors uh i just feel like the film let them all down a bit like it didn't like i have a certain expectation of like a netflix christmas movie like that lindsey lohan one that we watched together which was such a laugh but i had higher expectations for this I just didn't feel like it delivered at all what did you think do you know what I had a good time but I will say full disclosure I went to like a screening in a cinema for this one they had a big sort of launch event for it and and so I had my you know cinnamon bun flavored popcorn there with me people were wearing the the cracker hats because they'd given us crackers before the screening maybe this has all swayed me but also I genuinely feel like you can tell the difference first of all when there are proper actors in a film and I think Michelle Pfeiffer is still very very good at what she does and I sort of bought her thing um and I think like I was having visions the whole time of my mum watching this now she hasn't yet because it's only just out but I was sitting there going I know what she's she's going to cackle the whole way through it and she's going to cast side long looks at my dad throughout and he's going to get increasingly uncomfortable as the film goes on and it would be very funny if I were in the room with them and so it's possible that I was projecting that humor onto this film but I did think it was at times a pretty good script there are good one-liners in this script there are good little comic situations it doesn't go for all of the same old stuff you know that you've seen a million times I mean you've probably seen some of these a hundred thousand times but not a million you know that's true I do come at them differently from you though because obviously I know all the classic Christmas movies but I don't tend to watch the lessers the rubbish but you watch them all so for you you're probably like in the round of all the Christmas films you've watched this is up there whereas for me if I'm thinking of pure classics which this film does reference like planes trains and automobiles like it ain't there yeah and I don't think it's ever gonna be a classic but in terms of the story like and her character i found it outrageous that she thinks and are we doing do we do spoilers i think we can do spoilers so we can do spoilers go away guys and watch oh what fun and come back if you're worried about spoilers because on prime like it's got michelle pfeiffer but um there's this whole plot about her wanting to be nominated as best mom of the year right for what like none of her children live with her she doesn't appear to have a job she's like really wealthy right and she's kind of insisting on this big christmas meal that it doesn't seem other people are particularly bothered about the character's deranged that she thinks she should be nominated like this like that they are the kind of awards literally that will be for somebody whose like child is really ill or whose house is burned down or like something really awful or maybe you're like a single mom who's holding down like three jobs yeah future kids and to be honest just a wealthy woman who does nothing and we have we do actually see some of the winners at the end of the sort of show that she goes to and that's exactly who they are it's oh it's the woman who's adopted 11 needy children and it's yeah and it's the single mum struggling with this that and the other and it is all of those things and and I think that the film maybe could actually address that a bit more than it does I find it interesting though that and again this is getting into spoiler territory but when she has her big confrontation with the elder daughter with the Felicity Jones character and I thought that was not unfamiliar to me as an elder daughter you know there was a little bit of okay I'm in this photo and I don't like it but there was a you know there was that moment of confrontation and I think in a really bad Christmas movie that would be all Felicity Jones apologizing and actually in this one to give it credit it's Felicity Jones kind of accusing and actually saying what the problem is that she has been holding back all these years and it's Michelle Pfeiffer kind of saying sorry and I kind of wanted the sorry on both sides a bit more than I got it but I thought that that was you know it was a little bit sharper and smarter than some of the others out there you know this was not the full hallmark which is again I'm always grading these things on a curve and I do take your point I mean like I say Michelle Pfeiffer was in Batman Returns which is a phenomenal Christmas movie Dominic Cessa is in this and he was in The Holdovers which is a phenomenal Christmas movie this is not those I'm not saying that it is but at least it had some zingers and some cleverness to it which I did I laughed a few times it was interesting that I just I feel like the film I don't know what the film wanted us to do with Michelle Pfeiffer's character because at no point did I ever feel sorry for her I thought she was really self-entitled and really boring like she wasn't even kind of quirky or fun and there's this sequence which is like Home Alone really where there's a bit of a mix up and everyone's toing and froing to this go to this event and then but there's no build-up to that event it's just happening and suddenly they're all going and then she chooses to cross the road and go to the neighbor's house because she's in this kind of nonsensical like feud re-Christmas gifts and then people all drive off without her because they all think she's in a different car to me as like the inciting incident for her to leave her family I really thought well she's got another car she's American so they all have two cars they've all just been a mix-up just follow them like she was so thin-skinned that that kind of resulted in her sort of breakdown but we didn't really have much time for the breakdown because it all takes place over two days so it wasn't like this happened three weeks before Christmas and we got this build-up of her on a road trip or I don't know am I too critical it was like I thought it was really bad I do actually agree with you on that I do think the timing is an issue that could have been better addressed I got the sense in the early scenes I think they set out quite well the sort of the stress of having your family all come home to visit right and and I know this because I've seen my mum um who's never stressed of course she's a saint mum if you're listening but I've seen other people's mums and you know that stress of like oh I've got to get this from this store because it's that child's favourite and I've got to do this because it's that child's big priority and I've got to do that and you're thinking of a hundred things and you're trying to make everything perfect for Christmas I mean I'm not a mum but I get that I see that I know women who run themselves ragged trying to make all of that happen and I think so I thought that bit worked but yet I mean you're right about the inciting incident being weak and I think also just the way it plays out isn't always successful like they have that scene with Danielle Brooks in the motel so she goes off driving to nowhere she doesn't really know on Christmas Eve night she ends up sharing a room with this delivery driver played by Danielle Brooks and they're kind of I think going for a planes trains and automobiles direct homage at that point right and and danielle brooks is amazing she's such a comic actress she's so accomplished but it just felt like well that was a moment that happened and didn't really go anywhere you know i wanted that was the moment where i thought oh they really they're directly referencing a film that's like 20 times better than it 30 times i don't know how many times better it is but they shouldn't have been referencing it it just was like it just begged the comparison but they'd had no time together of course there we've got Steve Martin and John Candy we spent all the time with them this is like a five minute throw away yeah and with Michelle Pfeiffer I'm still like what are you doing and why are you here I didn't really understand her motivation and then the timing is hilarious because it's like Eva Longoria films on Christmas day and on Boxing Day like I don't think TV shows film on those days.

11:05I did have a note about that. Do you remember in Scrooged, right? So in Scrooged, part of his kind of moral awakening or whatever you call it at the end of the movie is him realising that one of the awful things that he did was to schedule this live broadcast on Christmas itself because what a monstrous thing for anyone to do to your staff and to all the people at the network beyond maybe absolutely essential news. why would anything be live on Christmas day it makes no sense do what Strictly do and film it in about like I think February of the previous year and I was like why would you be on air on Christmas day my god woman no wonder your children are thankless this is terrible and also like again the timeline makes no sense and this is like the teed I agree I like I realise I'm such a boring film watcher because I'm like so the submissions had to be entered by Christmas Eve and yet there all the nominees are there on Christmas Day like logistically this don't work.

12:05I often think it's a flaw in Christmas films that they have to tie themselves up in knots to these really tight timelines so even if you take like Love Actually it's the month of December but in reality it makes no sense where for example the Colin Firth storyline should have taken place in over eight months right and they tie themselves up in knots but they kind of give themselves a few weeks which I think is a bit smarter but here because they start on the 23rd of December and they end on the 26th of December like the film just makes no sense and the fact that you've paid it all off and she's had this whole character arc and my sister's main issue with it was the the guy who played Jason Schwartzman Doug oh Doug I love my sister was just like why is everyone so mean to him like that never came together in any way that made sense like he was just basically being kind of bullied by his sister-in-law his sister-in-law was so Chloe Grace Moretz is so mean to Jason and Schwartzman's Doug.

12:54I loved Doug. Doug was the non-toxic glue that was holding that entire family together. Despite having to sleep in a single bed with his wife every Christmas, he was still showing up. He was still showing an interest. He was going out of his way to be helpful in a way that pretty much no one else was. Yeah. And she said he was boring. I'm like, he, okay, granted he was just being really weird and trying to like connect with her because she was gay. But he's like, when I was in college, I hooked up with a guy and then she got up and walked out the room and I'm like I'd be staying here for this anecdote so he yeah I just none of it worked for me none of it's landing like it was so flat and that's where I'm like I don't know enough about filmmaking to know if it's is it the sound is it the direction is it my mom so my mom acts right and she reckons that for these kind of crisp cheap Christmas movies or similar cheap straight to kind of Netflix movies that in a normal sense before filming actors practice together for weeks but on these really low budget ones which presumably this was to have a cast like this for a film like this that they get no rehearsal time together so she often reckons that's why they feel flat even when you're watching like really good actors together I don't know if that's the case here but I I should have been better I don't I mean I yeah I will say it would have been nice for this to be a proper like full-on Christmas classic I don't know how cheap this is And the reason I don't know how cheap it is, is it because it has, again, a couple of the hallmarks of the genre.

14:21This one has proper Christmas music by the original artist, right? And it has clips of all of those genuinely great Christmas movies, not just Planes, Trains and Automobiles. There are several classic Christmas movies that are on TV in the background, as they are, I'm sure, in all our houses over Christmas, throughout this movie. So it did feel like there was money here. I mean even aside from the fact You've got Michelle Pfeiffer And not person who played the mum In that sitcom 20 years ago You know in the lead role Like that did feel like they had They had some cash here So yeah that's a really good shout Actually I hadn't thought of it like that But I wonder if the production timeline Is still very condensed That's possible I felt like the only scenes That I kind of really believed Like that I truly believed What was happening It was the ones between Felicity Jones And Michelle Pfeiffer Like they had more scenes together They just both really put a lot into the scenes like me and my sister were laughing so much about the kids they never once spoke it's like they just featured extras they didn't get one line in this film it's kind of the energy of home alone a lot of the time just so I think what what disappointed me is I'm like it's like you know an auty child like he could have been better like all it's all here like like when you reference that director and the work he's done like it is a bit mad isn't it that you'd end up with this I just non-class like it's just never you're never gonna I just don't think in a year's time anyone's going to re-watch it oh i think some people are i think there are going to be women out there i'll be honest wives and mothers um who put this on a little bit pointedly and i do think there are going to be people who cackle their whole way through it and and cast sidelong looks at their husbands and you know make it clear that actually this has this has a point of view no i do think it's out of date and i think that is more our parents generation than our generation but I do think there is a generation that is going to really embrace this in a big way so I'll I don't know maybe I'm wrong maybe I'm giving it too much credit but I do think there's there's something there for those people yeah I'm gonna show it to my mom then see what she thinks and also I think like when we watch something like this you watch it at the cinema so you had a totally different experience like I'm watching it at home nearly like taking notes and that isn't really probably in the spirit of a Christmas movie either to watch it on like a monday morning so maybe if i had a few mulled wines or something and i was watching this it would have been different but i think it's just more like i expect a lot of christmas movies to not be great but when there's a cast like this like i haven't seen chloe moretz in a long time so i guess i'm a little bit disappointed for it to see her in an adult role and it's like this role yeah like she's great though i actually thought she was really good but i just think i just didn't work i like that they found a different kind of issue for all the kids even then I thought they were monsters you know even leaving aside the fact that their mother is crazy I think the kids are not great I mean you know they're all coming home immediately putting their feet up not doing anything they are yeah they're really rude and they are adults now and there are small a couple of grandchildren albeit non-speaking around so you know you would help out a little bit more than these guys seem to do and then I'm like but Michelle Pfeiffer like she's doing everything unasked for so therefore she's entirely created this whole their monstrous yes habits I suppose so yeah yeah so I felt very unsympathetic towards her how about how about Dennis Leary how about the dad I had to google him you know I didn't recognize him did you reckon I mean you watch a lot more films than I do yeah I don't know I didn't think much of him what did you think I know I think it was an interesting it was an interesting character because he was super useless.

18:05Let's be honest. He did nothing of help to really anyone. He clearly loved them all. And I like that he got across that sense that he was not, you know, an actively hostile or an uncaring parent. He cared, but he didn't show that in any way that was really practical beyond the bit he's comfortable with, which is, well, he thought he was comfortable with, which is trying to build a dream house. I think that did make me laugh when he brought in his construction crew buddies to try and build a sort of dream house thing um but you know he's comfortable expressing love in that way but not in the way of really anything else major and i thought that was probably quite true to life that said again i would have liked him to have a bit more of a moment of realization or a you know leading the troops sense when they do realize that something has to be done there was no sense of him even stepping up at that point so that was kind of a who was like this shock comedian in the early 90s he was on euro trash or something on a friday night telling scurrilous jokes and here he is as the dad in a christmas movie it's such a cozy role yeah and i think i actually think one of my favorite scenes was towards the beginning of the film and they're all sitting down to dinner and he's like there's just one person i need to thank and he's like sit down sit down and then actually like he's thanking himself or he's dressed up as and she looked really upset in that moment and I think that was nearly the most like emotion we got from Michelle Pfeiffer in the whole thing that wasn't just like really silly yeah like I guess what I want is not what the film wants is I want a woman in like a real breakdown like I want to see her like her words grumbling I just don't have that much respect for her as a character of her entire life goal is to get onto this silly show which I guess I think it's more of a like Drew Barrymore Carrie Kelly Clarkson type show than an Oprah I think that's true and then and then she's like in this just nonsense thing with the neighbor about candles and wicks and i just thought like how could i ever connect with this with her as my protagonist like i probably connected more with the daughter character and i did think that was really interesting conflict when the daughters like me and my family want to spend christmas on our own and start our own traditions and that is something that like children have to fly the nest and do that and that's really complicated yeah particularly for like a matriarch like her who maybe spends a whole month on christmas and has really not much else going on so oh it's quite quite a blow but then they just all end up together the following christmas including the neighbors and that was kind of fun but like silly but yeah yeah the large thing that was that was an odd choice actually i thought for a moment what we were going to see is that she's in one hot tub and you know as the camera panned back for that final shot of the movie i thought either the neighbor was going to be in a neighboring hot tub or blisty jones's character was going to be in a neighboring hot tub because we're not going to repeat the mistakes in a new generation yeah but neither I guess maybe Felicity Jones didn't need it because she has Doug and Doug is wonderful yeah there's just like there's no lesson learned either I feel like this film is as we say it's neither it's not a classic mode but it's not at like camp Lindsay Lohan Saint Nick what was that film called again that was so fun Hot Frosty no but I also I loved Hot Frosty like they're the kind of ones I love like Hot Frosty was brilliant like such a laugh watching Hot Frosty but this is like neither of those things so what is it?

21:26Just falling between two stools for you basically but for you I guess you've watched a lot this season so of the new ones well this is it I mean Ava Longora is in two Christmas movies this year she's also in Christmas Karma and this one is head and shoulders above Christmas Karma in terms of her performance so and just you know I think overall to be honest so yeah you know it gets some points for that yeah I I just I find it a really odd film because I like I say I did laugh I thought there were jokes there were some really well written little zingers and one-liners and moments and stuff I think that the the issue for me was like bits of it really worked like I remember enjoying some of the scenes with Dominic Sessa I think he's a really really good actor even aside from my love for the holdover is holding over I think he's which I need to watch I haven't seen but you're gonna love it you're gonna love it it's so good but he I thought you know had a really nice little flirtation going with this girl he sees as completely unattainable and is convinced she doesn't know who he is and blah blah blah and I really enjoyed their dynamic it's only a tiny little part of the film but they were both really charming together so bits like that kind of kept me going through the bits where I was slightly rolling my eyes and going why is that all there is for Danielle Brooks to do why aren't they traveling together now like what's what was the point of that scene if you're not going to then have Danielle Brooks in the rest of your movie so yeah it's stuff like that and also like I said I did as you say um bump up a lot against the timeline because I think there's no reason not to have this in sort of the three weeks before Christmas that yeah kind of even speaks to like even more that she's not really that hard-working a mom because her kids only come home for two nights a year yeah so like girl what what are you getting nominated for this is a bit that I don't it doesn't even show us that she's like working in homeless shelters or and it doesn't portray her in someone who's doing any good for her community she seems quite annoying in the family unit and then even when she's like talking to Eva Longoria on Boxing Day when she's been come back live and Eva Longoria is like oh you're the most relatable woman in America I was like this film is so out of touch that it thinks this massively wealthy white lady is like down with the gals and like we'd all be relating to her also Andy Cohen appeared to be working on Christmas Day doing a celebrity show yeah the timeline thing and I just don't know what the film was pitching at like that was the bit that I couldn't really get behind Eva Longoria it's funny I nearly forgot she was in the film because she's kind of barely in it yeah like if somebody crashed your set right and was like crazy would you invite them for drinks with you or would you like call security I mean to me they sold that reasonably well but yes I would call security obviously but I thought the idea that she was won over by this woman's story and related to I thought that was kind of a funny and a non again non-obvious way to respond I suppose yeah yeah I'm so I'm way too harsh she's like my kids don't buy me any presents and I'm like but you have to teach your kids that right because we give our kids pocket money and they know that at Christmas they're gonna have to like I'll bring them shopping for their dad's present then he'll bring them shopping for my present and they have to use their own pocket money and we're only bringing them to a secondhand bookshop you know that's something you teach your kids so if you never taught your kids to give you gifts and if you spoil your kids rotten all the time like what I don't know what do you think you should get a prize Michelle I'm just way too hard so you're basically just take a look at yourself Michelle I'll take a look in the mirror and go volunteer somewhere for charity because you're really rich it's always these things with these houses as well that makes you kind of it's hard to relate to the characters oh I wish I could relate to the character in that house I really do I would like to yeah it's I did my favorite scene was when the neighbor said we're so glad you didn't put up the inflatables this year and then she went and put up and I thought oh she's feisty and then she robbed a shop but that didn't really make it that was unpleasant to watch actually that was one of the that was the scene where I went oh this film's really bad now her and the daughter robbing a candle from a store and like escaping with it like a props of literally nothing I think that the film kind of went downhill at that point yeah so I'm way too harsh I hope your other reviewers are nice here about these films isn't it funny though that you can watch a hot frosty and have such a laugh because it's not purporting to be anything but ridiculous a snowman that turns into a man it's like sure it's totally fine but this film's trying to nominally tackle real issues but like doesn't tackle them at all so yeah yeah alright well okay so let's rate this film's Christmasiness out of 5 stars How did it score in Christmassyness for you?

26:00Two So all the dressing was there But not the spirit Is that what you're saying? Yeah Like I didn't come away From it with any I think right in the last minute They got Chloe Moretz To do a dance with the brother-in-law But I was like But what's the message though? You can just be horrible to people It didn't give me a message I like my Christmas movies To be a little bit preachy I think Or absurd Yeah fair enough And overall as a movie What would you give it? I'd probably give it two stars as well Well I think I'd be warmer I'm probably like well We're always judging on a curve Well a curve of Christmas movies Yeah this is it On the curve of Christmas movies This is a 3.5 or a 4 for me But you know as a movie It's probably I would probably go 3 Because I did laugh a few times And I was amused by the characters You know even though you've opened my eyes to some of the ways that Michelle Fecker is my list of errors but like I give her frosty a five so like I'm not necessarily the best judge that puts it back in perspective Kathy we've been on this before so you've talked about your favorite Christmas movies before have you got any new Christmas traditions or anything like that to share or is it very much making my kids buy me a second making I mean honestly I think that's a great idea yes like we don't need anything new also me and my husband now we only buy each other second hand gifts for christmas because we're like we're spending so much money on all the other stuff that like let's not actually waste money on each other but it's so nice to give her get a gift so they're my christmas traditions i try and buy loads of secondhand stuff within reason you know santi ain't bringing secondhand toys uh and then in terms of my christmas tradition it's coming on back home book to talk about christmas movies the best christmas tradition yeah yeah and yeah that's it it's funny I'm hosting Christmas this year with the whole family which I've never done how many people I did have some of Michelle's Pfeiffer's anxiety yeah like 15 people that is big yeah so I felt her anxiety I did feel it I'll give her that much but it's gonna be fine you've got help it's gonna be fine I mean yeah the thing is I'm not gonna do it all so that's the bit I don't understand I'm like you guess bring some of their own food like obviously my husband does as much as I'm doing you know yeah and we've got some news haven't we Helen we do yes yes January 29th we are going to be appearing together to talk about rom-coms I can't wait it's gonna be great in the Curr Zone in Hoxton yes 29th of January my husband Dave will also be there so it's the Cinemile with special guest Helen O 'Hara and it's called After the Meet Cute we're going to be reviewing rom-coms our favorites we're going to be talking about new rom-coms we're going to be talking a little bit how rom-coms have shifted away from cinema onto the smaller screen it's going to be a live audience we'd love if you guys come because we're going to have loads of audience interaction as well and yeah we want everyone coming with their rom-com hats on to talk about the best genre really i mean i think it's got i think it's got a claim to be honest many of my favorites are in the rom-com arena at the very least even if they cross over into other arenas too like a lot like for example your love actually you can't get away from it like talk about a christmas rom-com you know what i mean like when it works it really works so i can't wait for that i haven't actually been in london for ages either and so the tickets are going on sale soon they may be on sale when this comes out but helen can link to them anyway so it should be really fun can't wait come along and join us on that note kathy thank you so much for joining us and merry christmas merry christmas

29:33Thank you.