There’s even more crazy debauchery in 2008’s ‘found footage’ style ‘80s set Canadian comedy Cooper’s Christmas. In this one, using a second hand video camera, the seriously dysfunctional suburban Cooper clan document the most chaotic Christmas when some scandalous family secrets are brought out in the open. Long story short, it’s likely that mum Nancy (Samantha Bee) shacked up with Uncle Tim (Peter Keleghan) on her wedding night, while hubby Gord (Jason Jones) was passed out drunk. Yikes.
I’m not surprised the whole ‘found footage’ movie craze of the ‘00s died down, as I always found those films to be very contrived, involving an element of suspension of disbelief for them to work. Like, why are these people filming everything? Fortunately, though, as this is a goofy comedy you can sort of forget all that and just go with it.
I enjoy that for what initially seems like a warm family comedy in the spirit of TV’s The Goldbergs, this quickly turns incredibly dark and crude, with some very risqué stuff. There’s a running gag that the previous owner of the camera – and the VHS tape in it – was seedy ‘adult’ film-maker Bill (played by Scott Foley), so we occasionally unexpectedly cut to little snippets of Bill getting up to sordid acts, involving nipple clamps and stuff. I didn’t find this all that funny, but I appreciate what they were going for in really trying to push the limits of what you can get away with in a Christmas movie.
Some gags - like the family’s obvious discomfort when Aunt Bev (Jennifer Baxter) brings her new African boyfriend over – work really well, highlighting just how questionable a lot of attitudes towards race were back in the 1980s. When this friendly black gentleman arrives at the door, the family initially react in terror, assuming he’s an intruder.
However, most of the humour is overly crude and misses the mark for me, like trashy hoser Uncle Nick (Mike Beaver) bragging about a sexual conquest that was, essentially, a rape and horndog youngest son Teddy (Dylan Everett) paying hot older cousin Heather (Hayley Lochner) to strip for him.
The cast, mostly Canadian telly comedy stalwarts, all perform well with Jones being particularly pitch- perfect as Gord, putting on a brave face, constantly in denial as his wife’s dirty secret becomes common knowledge. There are echoes of The Hangover’s Ed Helms in Gord’s everyman cheesiness and his efforts to plaster on a defiant smile and plow through Christmas day, despite his world gradually crashing down around him. He hasn’t touched a drink since his wedding night but, as Tim makes a surprise visit, it’s not long before Gord’s back on the sauce and making an arse of himself.
It's definitely refreshing to see a film that acknowledges that, for many, Christmas day usually just devolves into a gigantic piss-up. I recognise a lot of the unfiltered madness that goes on in the Cooper house, though I’m not sure my family ever went this far. Mind you, I did once wake up on a golf course on Christmas morning and have since vowed to never drink again, so who can say?
It’s an intriguingly random film that squeezes a lot of oddness in, from mannequin fetishes to a traditional ‘Welsh-German’ festive feast of mushrooms on toast. It’s just not as funny as it thinks it is and doesn’t get the gross-out/festive warmth balance quite right. Trailer Park Boys director Warren P. Sonoda does, however, create an incredibly authentic ‘80s atmosphere with spot-on set and costume design, not to mention some fantastically awful hair.
The film is a funny, if awkward reminder that these were far-less PC times and we’re definitely not supposed to sympathise with these moronic, morally-dubious people. It’s just that it seems to be trying a bit too hard to be shocking and strange, though it’s definitely never boring or predictable. It’s a vulgar, mean-spirited car-crash of a film, but then we do like to slow down to take a peak at car crashes, don’t we?
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