Respond to these rapid questions in our The Night Before quiz and we will tell you which The Night Before character you are. Play it now.
Another one of Jonathan Levine’s collaborations with Seth Rogen, “The Night Before” depicts the talented comedian and writer navigating the challenges of adulthood while discovering that friendships can endure the process of growing up. The character played by Rogen, along with his closest friends, keeps bringing up the fact that this will be the final party of its kind throughout the rowdy, drug-fueled comedy. It made me wonder if Rogen wasn’t trying to head off criticism of repetition in the past — yes, we’ve thrown this party before in movies like “Knocked Up,” “This is the End,” and “Neighbors,” but this is really the last time it will ever happen. Regardless of whether or not that is the case, “The Night Before” is a well-intentioned comedy that has some big laughs and some big misfires, but it ultimately succeeds because Rogen and his well-cast buddies ground it in a way that makes them likeable. It also doesn’t hurt to have a killer supporting performance like Michael Shannon’s.
The first few minutes of “The Night Before” consist of an animated telling of a traditional Christmas story, which is narrated by Tracy Morgan in a style that is unique to him. We meet Ethan (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), Isaac (Seth Rogen), and Chris (Anthony Mackie), three of Ethan’s closest friends who have been spending Christmas Eve together for more than a decade, ever since Ethan’s parents passed away. They try to have as much fun as they can while acting mostly like idiots. They will do whatever it takes to make this holiday more memorable than the last one, acknowledging that emotions run high during the holidays and attempting to keep Ethan positive. This includes blowing up snowmen, getting high and going to look at the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree, and singing “Christmas in Hollis” at karaoke.
The pressures of adulthood are putting the annual event to its breaking point. Isaac is blessed with a devoted wife named Jillian Bell, who is currently well into the third trimester of her pregnancy. Because he is about to become a parent for the very first time, he cannot continue to indulge in holiday shenanigans. Chris, on the other hand, is dealing with an entirely different problem. He is having a breakout season on the football field, despite the fact that he has been using steroids to achieve this result. Chris is 34 years old, which is well past an athlete’s prime. Additionally, he appears to be more concerned with his online following than he is with his actual life. In the meantime, Ethan recently ended his relationship with Diana (played by Lizzy Caplan), a girl who eventually kicked him out of her life after he repeatedly refused to meet her parents. He does not try to hide the fact that he wants her back.
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The course of “The Night Before” is determined by two events: Ethan happens upon tickets to a legendary holiday party in New York City known as “The Nutcracker Ball,” and Isaac’s wife gives him a box of drugs to make the evening even more insane. Isaac gets extremely messed up while the boys are getting ready for the big party that will take place later that night. As a result, Rogen is able to exhibit some truly inappropriate behavior as he mixes mushrooms, Molly, coke, weed, and other items from his box of goodies. While this is going on, Chris tries to purchase some marijuana in order to make a good impression on the team’s star quarterback. This leads the rest of the gang to Mr. Green, played by Michael Shannon, who was the same dealer they dealt with when they were in high school. Cameos are made by Comedy Central stars Ilana Glazer (“Broad City”) and Nathan Fielder (“Nathan For You”), and Miley Cyrus makes an appearance at the very end of the piece in a very funny scene to remind everyone that “Wrecking Ball” is the ideal pop song.
The Night Before Quiz
The entirety of “The Night Before” contains a number of “bits” that are surprisingly unsuccessful. The scene in which Isaac’s nose drips “cocaine blood” into Diana’s drink is dreadfully unfunny, and Mindy Kaling’s performance as Diana’s best friend is a complete waste of her talents. Another scene near the end of the piece, in which Ethan picks a fight with a couple of drunk guys dressed as Santa Claus, is simply ineffective due to the fact that it is too late in the piece. One can’t help but wonder if the piece didn’t require another rewrite or if Levine, who demonstrated strong dramatic chops with “50/50,” was the right fit for this kind of “wacky adventure.” He is not always successful in striking the right comedic balance, particularly as the piece delves deeper into its characters and we are still expected to believe that these guys are stupid enough to try to steal a horse-drawn carriage (another disastrously unfunny bit). If you’re keeping score at home, which I’m sure some of you are, “The Night Before” has a greater number of sequences that don’t make sense when compared to “This is the End” or “Neighbors.”
Also, you will find out which character are you in this The Night Before quiz.
On the other hand, and this is a significant but, it has a fantastic cast. Gordon-Levitt and Mackie bring a level of gravitas to their roles that would be lacking if other, less talented actors who are strictly comedic were cast in those roles. The chemistry between Caplan and Gordon-Levitt is genuine, and Levine appears to be more invested in the story of their arc than other directors would be. It is important to us that these characters find success and happiness, and the significance of this cannot be overstated. They are not simply acting as joke mouthpieces like the characters in the movie Happy Madison. They are real people who are played by some of the best actors in the business. Their narrative search for comfort under the Christmas tree does not come off as the cliche that it otherwise would due to Levine and his trio of actors investing all of their effort into it. And Michael Shannon, who plays the most sage pot dealer in New York City, steals the show in every scene he’s in.
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There are enough poor jokes in “The Night Before” to make you wonder, at certain points, whether Rogen shouldn’t have grown up and moved on from this subgenre one movie earlier. However, it ends strong. Because we’ve grown to know and like these characters throughout the course of the movie, and because the writers have finally finished wasting time to get to the big jokes and emotional realizations that we’ve all been waiting for, the last half an hour is the best part of the movie. At the end of the day, we don’t remember the lowlights of those “crazy nights” in our lives, and “The Night Before” has enough highlights to make it a fitting final holiday bash.Also, you must try to play this The Night Before quiz.
For more personality quizzes check this: The Gift Quiz.
