Now that Halloween has come, gone and left us with enough nightmare fuel for another year, Hollywood is firing up the festive marketing machine in anticipation of this year’s slew of Christmas-themed releases. And so, with both Love the Coopers and Jonathan Levine’s (50/50) The Night Before muscling for the limelight, another contender has emerged in the form of Mitch Davis’ Christmas Eve.
Retaining Tinsel Town’s obsession with intertwined festive stories, the debutant trailer for Davis’ feature boasts a fragmented narrative in the vein of Love Actually or, dare we say it, New Year’s Eve. There is reason to be hopeful, however, with Patrick Stewart doing his best impression of the curmudgeonly Ebenezer Scrooge and coming around to the festive spirit, while there seems to be enough schmaltzy charm to pull in a sizeable audience come release.
That said, we’d advise watching the entire trailer due to the fact that it essentially lays out the entire plot beat for soppy beat. Revealing too much ahead of time is rarely a good sign of the finished product, though we’re willing to lend Christmas Eve the benefit of the doubt for its ensemble cast – one which includes Stewart, Jon Heder, Cheryl Hines, Max Casella and Gary Cole.
Christmas Eve will open shortly after both The Night Before and the John Goodman-led Love the Coopers when it arrives in theaters on December 4 in North America. But can it still conjure up festive cheer – and a healthy box office haul – after the one-two punch of festivity? Time will tell. For now, here’s the detailed synopsis for Mitch Davis’ feature.
When a power outage traps six different groups of New Yorkers inside elevators on Christmas Eve, they find that laughter, romance, and a little holiday magic will get them through – and change their lives in unexpected ways. A heartless real estate tycoon (Patrick Stewart) clings to life in a precarious construction elevator hundreds of feet off the ground. Unexpected relationships bloom for a musician (Cheryl Hines) stuck with her dysfunctional orchestra mates, as well as an aspiring fashion photographer (James Roday) confined with the introverted paralegal in his apartment building (Julianna Guill). A crass HR manager (Max Casella) trapped with an employee he just fired (Jon Heder) and a cynical doctor (Gary Cole) transporting his terminal patient are forced to reconsider the way they think about others in this all-star ensemble comedy that proves that in a city of eight million, you never know who you might get stuck with.
