Office Christmas parties are usually drab, insipid affairs that feature little-to-no alcohol, terrible white elephant-type gifts, and the constant specter of your boss or supervisor judging your every move, even if the party is after-hours and off site. To put it bluntly, most office christmas parties suck. In the new film Office Christmas Party, that sometimes dull year-end event is thrown out on its ass, and the party is taken to 11 and beyond when the employees know that there may be no tomorrow for their company.
Office Christmas Party stars T.J. Miller and Jennifer Aniston as siblings who run their late father’s data management company. Carol Vanstone (Aniston) wants to be named CEO, and is working to shut down ineffective branches across the country. Clay Vanstone (Miller) runs the Chicago branch — the same branch their late father started — and with the help of his CTO Josh (Jason Bateman) and Josh’s ace-in-the-hole tech guru Tracey (Olivia Munn), they must save the branch from closing by wooing a huge new client in Walter Davis (Courtney B. Vance) by throwing the biggest party of the year.
L-R: Kate McKinnon as Mary Winetoss, Jason Bateman as Josh Parker, T.J. Miller as Clay Vanstone, Olivia Munn as Tracey Hughes in OFFICE CHRISTMAS PARTY by Paramount Pictures, DreamWorks Pictures, and Reliance Entertainment
The cast also includes Kate McKinnon as Mary, the uptight head of human resources, and Rob Corddry, Randall Park, Karan Soni, and Vanessa Bayer as employees with varying degrees of histories with one another, who, when hopped up on drugs and alcohol, let their inhibitions out and chaos ensues.
Miller and Bateman carry the film, but Vance’s Walter Davis descent into full-on party mode before his story violently ends after a stunt goes wrong is something to behold. Office Christmas Party isn’t vying for any awards, and isn’t trying to become a beloved holiday classic. This film is a definite “you get what you get” affair, and if you are looking for something to just sit back and laugh at, it serves its purpose well.
Courtney B. Vance Lets loose at the Office Christmas Party.
The plot of Office Christmas Party is a bit tired, but a movie like this doesn’t even need a story. This is one big party that grows and grows, as more and more hilarious situations are piled on top of each other until it reaches a crescendo of insanity, punctuated by a slow motion shot of Jesus Christ riding a horse through an office in a downtown Chicago high rise. Let that image sink in for a second.
Office Christmas Party is the perfect, insanely hilarious end to not only an awful calendar year, but a year of somber, depressing films that are all vying for awards consideration. It’s nice to sit back and laugh out loud at the antics on-screen, and forget about the state of the world outside the theater. Forget shopping, crowds, and opinionated uncles who love to talk politics and religion whenever the family is all together. Get out there and laugh. Office Christmas Party offers those laughs, that reprieve, and even takes on a decent story in the process, just don’t expect a world changing piece of art. This is one gift that is no surprise.
Office Christmas Party is rated R and is in theaters now.
