Opening this weekend is this year’s first Christmas film, Love The Coopers. Originally to be titled Let It Snow, it is a formulaic, breezy holiday flick shot in my hometown of Pittsburgh.
Love The Coopers (Alan Arkin, Amanda Seyfried, John Goodman, Diane Keaton, June Squibb, Olivia Wilde, Marisa Tomei, Ed Helms, Anthony Mackie) – Anyone who doesn’t realize that formula movies are prevalent in Hollywood is living in an alternate universe. For many years, the milquetoast, family-friendly, star-studded holiday movie has been a staple.
The worst of the genre include Valentine’s Day and New Years Eve. The best of the ilk are Love Actually and The Holiday. In fact, Love Actually set the high bar by providing interesting and intersecting plots that come together in funny and tender moments punctuated by a great soundtrack.
Love The Coopers is this year’s edition of the genre. Here is the cast: Alan Arkin and June Squibb for the old folks; Diane Keaton, John Goodman, and Marisa Tomei for the baby boomers; Amanda Seyfried, Ed Helms and Olivia Wilde for the Gen Xers. Add several kids and a dog (that serves as the narrator as voiced by Steve Martin) and you hit the perfect formula … well it’s perfect as an example of the genre.
The problem with these star-fests is that the movies usually fall flat. Too many stars translate to plot holes, limited screen time for the popular actors, and a “phone-it-in” mentality for the leads. These films are usually saccharine pabulum.
Love The Coopers falls in the middle of the genre. The actors play family members getting together for Christmas dinner. They are good but are definitely limited by a bad script that doesn’t delve deeply into the characters. The film has five plots: Keaton and Goodman’s marriage on the skids; Arkin and Seyfried’s platonic May-December relationship; Wilde’s pick up of a soldier (played by Jake Lacy) at the airport; Helms’ desperate search for a job amidst his own divorce; and Tomei’s arrest by Mackie as a cop for shoplifting.
That is a lot of story for an hour-and-a-half. The stories are only marginally interesting but the audience doesn’t mind. After all, we aren’t here to see anything plot-driven.
The photography is beautiful if you love snow falling. Dozens of scenes feature the snow globe effect, which matches Keaton’s character’s hobby of collecting these globes. Life in a beautiful sanitary bubble makes for nice pictures and antiseptic movies. The soundtrack, put together by T. Bone Burnett (Crazy Heart, Inside Llewyn Davis), is heavily Bob Dylan oriented, which is not exactly light and breezy but it will attract the older demographic this film shoots for.
If you like to watch A Wonderful Life every Christmas, you should take the 90 minutes out of your holiday season to see Love The Coopers. But if you miss it, don’t worry. It will be on TV every single holiday season for years to come.