Christmas with the Coopers

 

Along with advent calendars and tinsel, stockings and turkey dinners, the Christmas film, featuring an array of talented stars cashing in their holiday bonus, has become a traditional part of the season. Following in the footsteps of Four Christmases, The Family Stone, and Christmas with the Kranks, is Christmas with the Coopers. It shows a day in the life of the Cooper family – Christmas Day or Christmas Eve (the film changes its mind throughout) – on what is intended to be the perfect Christmas before the family is torn apart by a threatened divorce. Throughout the day, sisters argue, teenagers fall in love, children swear, someone gets arrested, someone brings home a fake fiancé to impress the family, and an elderly relative with Alzheimer’s eats and farts in the corner.

At this point, the film writes itself – as, indeed, could this review. For the most part, the actors seem to be on auto-pilot. It is not quite clear whether John Goodman’s near-constant irritated facial expression is there to convey his character’s disdain for the Christmas charade he and his wife (Diane Keaton) have planned before they intend to announce their divorce, or whether it just conveys the actor’s own frustration at being in the film at all. To her credit, Keaton tries to give her role as much personality and emotion as she can but, as her character states on numerous occasions, she no longer knows who she is. Since the screenwriter and Keaton seem to have as little clue as the character herself, the audience have little hope of figuring it out either.

For the most part, the presence of such quality cast members is as exasperating as it is charming. Alan Arkin, June Squibb, Marisa Tomei, Steve Martin, Olivia Wilde, Jake Lacy, and Anthony Mackie are all nice enough to watch but literally anybody could pull off the material they are given to the same effect. As a result, the actors put in just enough effort to earn their fee while presumably saving the majority of their energy for other projects. Amanda Seyfried is the only cast member for whom it is hard to tell the difference between this and her usual performances, and so acquits herself sufficiently enough.

Admittedly, the film is not terrible, nor is it without its charms. The opening montage is an appropriate mixture of cynicism and cuddliness and efficiently sets the tone of the picture, raising a few smiles in the process. Furthermore, there are some fuzzier sentimental moments that suitably fulfil their remit and would not be out of place on Christmas Day itself. Indeed, this film is fine as a trashy Christmas movie - destined to be watched by full-bellied, half-asleep onesied viewers passing round the Quality Street as the Yule Tide logs burn down to a cinder. It is a rather televisual film and so might best be watched in this format. It certainly is not worth the price of a cinema ticket, but neither is it worth getting up to turn it off when the remote is on the other side of the room.

Christmas with the Coopers does, however, suffer from a scarcity of laughs and a fair amount of awkwardly inappropriate moments, which range from incongruous tone to accidental stereotyping. In the former case, there are occasional moments of gross-out humour that clash with the wry and warm dichotomy of the film, while in the latter case a character’s homosexuality is revealed in a rather insensitive and clinical manner.

These unfortunate aspects aside, the film is exactly what it sets out to be. It is far from perfect, and at times feels endless, but for the most part it provides a chuckle or two and would be perfectly adequate background noise on Christmas Day television. It may not be a turkey but is certainly no cracker. When it does appear on television, perhaps stick to watching Love Actually instead.  

Christmas with the Coopers is showing in Nottingham cinemas now.

Christmas with the Coopers Trailer