A decidedly more mature take on the holidays is up next with 2013’s celebrated The Best Man Holiday from director Malcolm D. Lee. It’s the long-awaited sequel to 1999’s The Best Man and features an impressive ensemble cast, telling the tale of what happens when the group of college friends from the original reunite after 15 years for a big Christmas get-together. Naturally, it’s not long before old grudges and romances are rekindled.
I watch this one exactly a year to the day that the UK government advised all ‘vulnerable’ people to stay at home, effectively locking us all down for the first time. It’s also exactly two years to the day since my best mate’s stag do – the last time I got to have a proper blow-out with my old school buddies, so watching these old pals reunite brings back some cool memories for me.
If, like me, you’ve never seen The Best Man, you may be worried that there’ll be a lot to catch up on. However, a clever opening credits montage does a decent job of filling in those gaps. I deduce that last time out a whole load of drama went down at a wedding and since then, these characters haven’t kept in touch too much.
Now, they all have their own respective crises to deal with, the sort of issues that can only ever truly be solved by spending some quality time with your unconditional BFFs. It's all a bit much with the over-the-top emotional stuff – at one point a character dramatically (and very knowingly) barks “that was some melodramatic shit.” But it's all anchored by a fantastic cast who all went on to do great things following the first film’s modest success.
Harper (Taye Diggs) is a successful author now struggling to recapture the magic of his early accomplishments. His publisher recommends he try and get old pal Lance (Morris Chestnut) to let him write his biography. Lance, who’s invited all the old gang over to his mansion for a few days during the holidays is a top NFL player on the verge of smashing a record on Christmas day (of course) and his wife Mia (Monica Calhoun) is secretly dying of cancer (someone has to be in this sort of film). Oh yeah, Harper’s missus Robyn (Sanaa Lathan) is also pregnant and due any day now. Possibly Christmas day, who can say?
Also invited is Lance’s ex Jordan (Nia Long), who’s brought her token white guy boyfriend along for added awkwardness. Elsewhere, teacher Julian (Harold Perrineau) is dealing with the potential business repercussions of the leak of a saucy Youtube video of his ex-stripper wife Candace (Regina Hall) who has no idea he knows.
Also in attendance are bitchy drama queen Shelby (Melissa de Sousa) who now has her own ‘Real Housewives’ type show for some reason, and the film’s MVP Quentin (Terrence Howard), a sexy, flaky, perma-stoned dude who seems to have some unspecified well-paying job that involves smoking blunts with the Dalai Lama. Cool.
There’s a lot going on here, and you can bet your ass all these disparate plot strands will come together, culminating in an epic Christmas shitshow. Babies will be born, people will die, old relationships will be rekindled, last minute touchdowns will be scored. There’ll be fights, fall-outs, humping and enough meaty juicy drama to fill a whole season of Dawson’s Creek.
It’s daft, it’s predictable but through the weapons-grade charm of this ensemble cast, they somehow get away with it. I’m fully aware throughout that my emotions are being toyed with by some ridiculous, exploitative tosh, yet I still get worked up when, during a monumental cat-fight, someone’s kid bawls that “this doesn’t feel like Christmas at all!”
The film crams in so much entertainment, including a sizzling, sexy choreographed dance routine by the boys. It’s all totally earnest and wears its heart on its sleeve, stares you in the eye and dares you to blink. The script seems to have been formulated in a special laboratory where the sole mission is to exploit every damn emotion you have. And for the most part it succeeds. Damn you, sexy sexy dancing Taye Diggs. Damn yooooouuuuu!
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