The Night Before

While Jonathon Levine’s new film The Night Before may not be a classic Christmas flick, it does bring ridiculous, crude and adolescent debauchery to celebrate the holiday season. It doesn’t have the touching sentiment of It’s a Wonderful Life or the child-friendly rating of The Grinch, but The Night Before definitely is one to bro out to this Christmas.

Ethan (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and his two best friends Isaac (Seth Rogen) and Chris (Anthony Mackie) have an annual tradition of going out on Christmas Eve to help Ethan forget about his parents’ death anniversary. As Isaac is about to be a father and Chris has become too famous from his football career, they agree to have one last Christmas Eve to tear s**t up, particularly as Isaac’s pregnant wife, Betsy, gifts him with a cornucopia of drugs for their final blowout.

The three don hilarious Christmas jumpers, Mackie’s designed with a black Santa Claus and Rogen’s emblazoned with the Star of David, that serve as their uniform for their holiday antics. Some scenes are overly crude, particularly Rogen’s cocaine-induced baby rage, as well as his penis picture exchange with James Franco. Some conceits are lacking and over the top, but still totally hilarious. The reference to A Christmas Carol and It’s a Wonderful Life using Mr Green the drug dealer as the ghost/angel of Christmas past, present, and future guiding the wayward friends is mildly genius and made for a good plot twist in this Christmas bromance.

The Night Before cannot be classified as a festive film because it couldn’t possibly be seen by children, but it combines the Christmas film with the buddy style comedy to create a rather touching message. It shows that you always have family if you have friends – and there’s always a weed dealer available in New York City, even on Christmas Day. The Night Before isn’t overly sappy and gives you the gift of laughter.

Dominique Perrett

The Night Before is released nationwide on 4^th December 2015.

Watch the trailer for The Night Before here: