Office Christmas Party (2016)
(On TV, December 2019) There’s a Christmas movie ghetto that may limit some movies from getting the attention they deserve the other eleven months of the year. In most respects, Office Christmas Party is as good as R-rated comedies got in the mid-2010s: An efficient script, an escalation of madness that justifies the adult rating, a great soundtrack, tight editing, and especially a solid ensemble cast doing what they do best in their usual screen persona. The plot is right there in the title, as a corporate Christmas Party gets wilder as its stakes go up. There’s some perfunctory narrative to wrap up the madness and bring comic personalities together (something to do with a brother and sister fighting to keep a technology company open despite a dearth of big clients and low morale) but let’s not fool ourselves: the high point of the film is in its third-quarter, when everyone goes wild in the corporate party of the century-so-far. (In a decent example of the directors Will Speck and Josh Gordon’s cinematographic craft, there’s a great pullback shot of the company’s two floors engulfed in wild partying as the rest of the office building is shut down for the night.) If you’ve seen any of the contemporary R-rated comedies, you know what to expect from Office Christmas Party. Still, when it works it works: Jason Bateman is once again the level-headed straight man of the bunch, holding the core of the film alongside the always cute (and sensible!) Olivia Munn. Jennifer Anniston adds another unsympathetic comedy character to her repertoire in the footsteps of the Horrible Bosses movies. Other known comic quantities such as T. J. Miller, chameleonic Kate McKinnon, Jillian Bell, Rob Corddry, and others all contribute their part to the anarchic mess. Given that it ends on Christmas, there’s some techno-magic to save the day. Office Christmas Party is great good fun, fully lives up to its name and should provide raucous entertainment for anyone driven to distraction by their own dull office Christmas celebrations. But it’s sufficiently upbeat that it remains decent viewing for the rest of the year— this Office Christmas Party is worth attending even in January.