Every year around this time, a handful of studios try as they may to release a holiday film that will finally be a staple for years and years to come. Why Him? is not that film. Imagine instead the worst of the Meet the Parents franchise (director John Hamburg wrote all 3 entries), but set go round at Christmas, as that is what you are getting.
The story set up is plainly simple enough: an old school/old business dad is taking his family to the coast to visit his daughter and meet her boyfriend. Difference here is that the F word gets peppered liberally and when I say liberally, I mean “enough to make Goodfellas blush”. The dad in question this go around, Ned (Bryan Cranston), is made to look like a relic. He owns a paper goods printing company that is barely holding on in the fight against the digital revolution. His sport/hobby of choice is bowling. Company nickname? “Big Cheese”. Accompanying him on the Chirstmas trip is his wife, Barb (Megan Mullally) and good natured son Scotty (Griffin Gluck). When they meet up with their daughter Stephanie (Zoey Deutch), she decides to drop the bomb on them that plans have changed and the holiday will now be spent with her tech millionaire boyfriend.
Laird Mayhew (James Franco, in full manic mode) is by far one of the more confusing, annoying, grating, grotesque characters to grace the screen recently. Issue is, the film continually tries to down play things by having him also seem like a sweet and kind man, who has just let his enthusiasm & eagerness to please, get the better of him. Instantly Ned is taken aback, refusing to find any interest in this new beau, or his lifestyle. Naturally, after one day on the property, Laird comes clean, letting his true intentions come clear: he wants to propose to Stephanie in a few days, on Christmas, but only if Ned gives his blessing. Doubling down, Laird says that if he fails, he’ll back off, but that Ned cannot tell his daughter anything at all. What follows is as obvious as the fact that a giant art piece of a dead moose encased in urine, will probably not survive the film.
I could appreciate comedy in a film like this, if it were handled with wit, satire, or originality. Sadly, what is on display undercuts all of that, sticking only to the most basic of crass, crude and baseless jokes. Very few lines uttered by Franco are sans expletive. There is a 5 minute sequence that is dedicated to literal toilet humor. A scene pertaining to hacking ends with a man narrating out loud that an avatar of himself is being anally raped by a mythological creature. Worse though, is that Why Him? wastes an incredibly talented cast. Keegan-Michael Key gets the brunt end, playing a former executive who left his job in order to help Laird become a great man, loyal leader and skilled survivalist. Sounds great on paper, but the film has him play Gustav as if he were a 5th rate character from “Key & Peele”. There feels to be more underneath the cheap characterization, yet that line is never really flirted with. It’s Megan Mullally who proves to be the MVP, understanding the tone of the film, interjecting her normal wild flair. Like everything else on display though, it comes in fits and spurts, never quite when the proceedings need it.
Since this a “me against him” comedy, everyone in the family ends up taking to Ned’s ways quite quickly. Barb appreciates Laird’s eye for art, that he was raised without a father, while Scotty is finally able to find someone to actually listen to his ideas. Stephanie, on the other hand, in the few times she is seen, has a heart to hearts with bother her father and Laird. Each time the men end up lowering their guard, attempting to find some common ground. Unfortunately, since there is still an hour in till the film ends, they have continually come up with ways to create more drama or obstacles for these 2 to jump through.
The escalation of events never really stops to take a break long enough to care about what is being seen, just the slightest of hopes someone is laughing. Acting as if there was a set checklist for a “bad holiday” or “I’m sorry I don’t posses the basic capacity to have a normal conversation with another individual” sub-genre, Why Him? slashes the boxes with careless glee, paying no attention to potential casualties, which includes the audience’s patience. Neither of the leads comes off likable, which is a mistake, as there needs to be someone to root for. Instead what transpires isn’t only overly predicable, but painfully unfunny or recycled from John Hamburg’s previous films.
Christmas movies aren’t exactly the highest form of art, nor have they had the best track record the last few decades. That shouldn’t be an excuse for a movie to wallow in the failures of what came before or resign itself to being barely adequate. Why Him? isn’t necessarily the worst comedy of the year, as it would still have to bottom out a bit to get there. It isn’t the worst holiday film ever, either, just the most recent.
