Facing another Christmas alone, Drew Latham (Ben Affleck) decides to go back to his idyllic childhood home to recall the family holidays of his youth. There is, however, one problem: the people living there now are not Drew’s family. Nevertheless, Drew has his mind set on an old-fashioned family Christmas, and the fact that the “family” in question, the Valcos, are complete strangers, isn’t about to put a crimp in his plans.
Offering them a small fortune, Drew bribes his newfound “parents” (James Gandolfini and Catherine O’Hara) to let him spend Christmas in their home, pretending to be part of the family. Just when the Valcos begin to question if any amount of money is worth being dragged all over town by the over-zealous Drew on such traditional family holiday excursions as Christmas shopping and the requisite choosing of the Christmas tree, their daughter Alicia (Christina Applegate) comes home for the holidays, with no intention of adopting a new “brother.”
Surviving Christmas is a 2004 American romantic comedy film directed by Mike Mitchell, written by Harry Elfont, Deborah Kaplan, Jeffrey Ventimilia, and Joshua Sternin based on a story by Elfont and Kaplan, and starring Ben Affleck, James Gandolfini, Christina Applegate and Catherine O’Hara.
Surviving Christmas opened theatrically on October 22, 2004 in 2,750 venues, earning $4,441,356 in its opening weekend and ranking seventh in the North American box office and second among the week’s new releases. The film ended its run on November 23, 2004 with $11,663,156 domestically and $3,457,644 overseas for a worldwide total of $15,120,800.
There’s No Place Like Home For The Holidays
“Christmas is a great holiday, but it can also be a very lonely time for some people,” says director Mike Mitchell about the premise of his new movie, “Surviving Christmas.” “I think there are a lot of people who can relate to the predicament of the character of Drew Latham, who will go to any lengths to avoid being alone at Christmas.”
“Surviving Christmas” first came to the attention of producing partners Jenno Topping and Betty Thomas when a writing team they knew pitched them an idea for a movie. “We had made the film `Can’t Hardly Wait’ with Deborah Kaplan and Harry Elfont,” Topping recalls. “They came to my office and said they had an idea for a movie about a man who returns to his childhood home, and persuades the people living there now to let him spend the holidays with them. It was only the one line at that point, but it seemed really funny to us.”
The final screenplay became a collaboration between Kaplan & Elfont and the writing duo of Jeffrey Ventimilia & Joshua Sternin. The producers then turned to finding the right director to helm the project. “For me, Mike Mitchell had the perfect combination of sensibilities,” Topping offers. “He understands physical comedy, but he also has a quirkier side. He is just offbeat enough and, at the same time, just commercial enough to get what the movie is really about. He doesn’t need a cookie cutter model, and he is not afraid of having genuine emotions in a broad comedy.”
Mitchell says the first and most important thing that drew him to the project was the script. “It always starts with a great script, and I thought this one was very funny,” he remarks. “For me, it was the story. Here is this lonely, rich guy who doesn’t have anyone to spend Christmas with. He returns to the house he grew up in, but, of course, a different family lives there now. So he does what anyone with nothing but money would do: He rents the people living there to be his family for the holidays for a cool quarter of a million. I just thought that was such a funny idea.”
Casting had already gotten underway when Mitchell was set to direct “Surviving Christmas.” “The interesting thing about our cast is that each one was our first choice, which was incredible,” Topping notes. “The chemistry between all the actors turned out to be amazing. We couldn’t have asked for better.”
The first person cast was Ben Affleck, who stars in the central role of Drew Latham. “I’ve known Ben for a long time and have always thought he was one of the funniest people I’d ever met,” states Topping. “I knew he was not only funny, but also capable of real invention and improvisation, so I loved the idea of him for this movie from the very beginning. A long time ago, I gave him an early draft of the script, and he loved it and said he wanted to do it.”
Affleck says, “I thought it had such a strong central premise, which was very funny and gave me a lot of mileage to have fun with the character. Drew Latham is kind of an unusual guy. He’s very energetic and thinks outside the box, and he’s been very successful because of that. But even though he has all the money in the world, he has nothing else in his life to show for it and no one to spend Christmas with, so he becomes sort of unhinged. He goes to his boyhood home and meets the Valco family, whose house it is now, and decides, `I’ll have Christmas with them.’ He’s the kind of guy who only thinks about what he wants and will throw money around to make it happen.”
With each new Christmas tradition imposed on the family, Drew seems to be working the last nerve of the head of the family, Tom Valco, although Tom has only himself to blame because it was he who immediately accepted Drew’s offer out of hand. James Gandolfini, who stars as Tom, explains, “Two hundred and fifty grand is a lot of money to a guy like that, so he thinks he can deal with whatever he has to do to get it, but he doesn’t realize what he’s getting himself into.”
“The first thing Drew makes Tom do is put on a Santa hat. Then he makes him sing `O Christmas Tree’ before they light up the tree, which is very humiliating, but so funny,” Mitchell laughs.
“I’m sure that will go down in film history as one of my most embarrassing moments ever,” Gandolfini says of having to sing in “Surviving Christmas.” “Ben has a lot of guts; he really went for it, whereas I didn’t really have to, because Tom is supposed to be miserable about it, so it was okay.”
“No one could have played Tom but James Gandolfini,” Mitchell asserts. “He’s terrific. It was such a great pairing because Ben’s character is always so energetic and full of the Christmas spirit-he’s a little obnoxious in that way-so when he’s going on his Christmas rant about how wonderful it all is and planning the family events, all you have to do is cut to Jim doing this slow, deadpan blink that he does when Tom is barely tolerating Drew, and it’s hilarious. He doesn’t even have to say anything and he’s funny. I was so glad Jim was part of this film.”
Topping reveals that Gandolfini almost wasn’t a part of the film. “We sent James the latest draft of the script, and he said he liked it and would do it, but then several scheduling conflicts arose with `The Sopranos’ and another movie he was doing. It looked like it wasn’t going to work out and we were completely devastated. We cast all the other parts, but 10 days before the start of production, we still hadn’t cast the role of Tom Valco because we’d had our hearts set on Gandolfini. We were looking at the list of possibilities, when Mike said, `Let’s just call Jim right now and tell him there’s absolutely no way we can make this movie without him.’ So Ben Affleck made the call and proceeded to leave the most passionate, heartfelt, ridiculous plea. I mean, he went on and on. Whether it was Ben’s call or just that the schedule opened up, the fates were on our side, and Jim said `yes.’”
With Tom’s grudging donning of the Santa hat, the Valco family proceeds to play along with Drew’s carefully orchestrated Christmas. But a wrench is put in Drew’s plans when the Valcos’ daughter Alicia arrives home for the holidays. Mitchell notes, “Drew made his deal with the family not knowing they had a daughter. When Alicia shows up, she wants no part of the deal and she can’t be bought off. Drew is used to throwing money at problems to get his way, but this is one time that the person is not buying into that, so it makes for a cool, very funny dynamic.”
Cast in the role of Alicia Valco, Christina Applegate adds, “Alicia comes home for Christmas to find this lunatic in her family’s house, who has completely persuaded her family to participate in this strange fantasy that he has about making them his family for lots of cash. Obviously, Alicia is not pleased at first, but she eventually begins to warm to Drew’s charms.”
Mitchell says, “Christina Applegate was, again, our first choice to play Alicia. She was great in the role because, like her character, Christina is really funny and smart and, of course, pretty. She also had great chemistry with Ben. I was thrilled with the way it turned out.”
Applegate offers that the opportunity to work with Affleck was one of the things that attracted her to the film. “Ben was already attached to it, and I just adore him, so that was definitely a big draw. The role of Alicia was wonderful-smart and silly at the same time-and the script was incredibly funny. I loved the concept that money can buy you everything but still get you nowhere.”
No rented family would be complete without a mother. The mom in Drew’s temporary family is Christine Valco, played by Catherine O’Hara. “Catherine O’Hara is someone that the entire filmmaking team has worshiped forever and ever,” Topping states. “She is one of the funniest people who’s ever lived, so you know going in that whatever she chooses to do with a role will be fantastic. The believability factor was also very important to us. You had to believe she was a real person who had lost sight of what was great about her life, her marriage and especially herself. Christine has let it slip away. Catherine is a great actress as well as a great comedienne, so she really grounded the role.”
The family member most displaced by Drew’s “home invasion” is the Valcos’ son Brian. The filmmakers cast Josh Zuckerman in the role of the teenager whose room Drew confiscates. Topping says, “We needed to cast someone who would appear to be the most tortured by a person like Drew Latham crashing in his house. Josh conveyed this energy that seemed so put upon, like he’s carrying the weight of the world. The more he was like that, the more it made us laugh to see him with this ridiculously hyperactive `brother’ trying to make him have fun when there is no fun to be had.”
“Brian’s philosophy of life was already that everything pretty much sucks, but then he definitely gets the short end of this deal,” Zuckerman comments. “He’s probably not getting any of the $250,000, but he still has to go along with the whole thing. He feels like everything is stacked against him and everything that happens only seems to confirm it. First he gets displaced from his room, then more people show up and he’s displaced again. He finally ends up sleeping in the garage. I had a lot of fun exploring all his frustration and teenage angst.”
When Tom Valco agreed to rent his family out for the holidays to Drew, he had no idea it would be a package deal that would come complete with a fake grandfather, affectionately called “Doo-Dah.” Veteran actor Bill Macy joined the cast in the role of Doo-Dah, who he says, “fits into this family because I don’t consider Doo-Dah normal and this family is not normal. He’s a community theatre actor who becomes the hired grandfather, but he’s not very grandfatherly because he’s quite irreverent.”
As it turns out, Doo-Dah is starring in the local theatre production of “A Christmas Carol,” so when his rehearsal schedule conflicts with dinner plans at the Valcos, he naturally sends in his understudy. It becomes a real case of “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” when the Doo-Dah Understudy, who happens to be African American, shows up unannounced right in the middle of an impromptu visit from Drew’s girlfriend, Missy Vangilder, and her parents.
Rounding out the main cast of “Surviving Christmas” are: Sy Richardson as the Doo-Dah Understudy; Jennifer Morrison playing Missy; and David Selby and Stephanie Faracy as Missy’s parents, Horace and Letitia. Udo Kier also appears in the role of Heinrich, an eccentric photographer hired by Drew to give Christine a makeover.
Surviving Christmas (2004)
Directed by: Mike Mitchell
Starring: Ben Affleck, Christina Applegate, James Gandolfini, Catherine O’Hara, Jennifer Morrison, Udo Kier, Josh Zuckerman, Stephen Root, Stephanie Faracy
Screenplay by: Harry Elfont, Deborah Kaplan, Jeffrey Ventimilia, Joshua Sternin
Production Design by: Caroline Hanania
Cinematography by: Peter Lyons Collister, Tom Priestley Jr.
Film Editing by: Craig McKay
Costume Design by: Mary Jane Fort
Set Decoration by: Lisa Fischer
Art Direction by: Sue Chan
Music by: Randy Edelman
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for sexual content, language and a brief drug reference.
Distributed by: DreamWorks Pictures
Release Date: October 22, 2004
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