New Year's Eve (2011 film)


New Year's Eve is a 2011 American romantic comedy film directed by Garry Marshall. The film consists of an ensemble cast consisting of Halle Berry, Jessica Biel, Jon Bon Jovi, Abigail Breslin, Chris "Ludacris" Bridges, Robert De Niro, Josh Duhamel, Zac Efron, Héctor Elizondo, Katherine Heigl, Ashton Kutcher, Seth Meyers, Lea Michele, Sarah Jessica Parker, Michelle Pfeiffer, Til Schweiger, Jake T. Austin, Hilary Swank, and Sofía Vergara.
New Year's Eve is the second in an unofficial trilogy of romantic comedy films directed by Garry Marshall, set on a one-day holiday and featuring an ensemble cast in a variety of stories, the other films being Valentine's Day and Mother's Day. Some of the cast of New Year's Eve had previously appeared in Valentine's Day, including Biel, Kutcher, and Elizondo. New Year's Eve was released on December 9, 2011, and grossed $142 million.

Plot

New Year's Eve follows several interconnected stories of people experiencing various problems on New Year's Eve.
Vice-President of the Times Square Alliance Claire Morgan is making the final arrangements for the ball drop with the help of her friend, police officer Brendan. Meanwhile, after being nearly run over by a car and denied a vacation, Ahern Records secretary Ingrid Withers quits her job and offers deliveryman Paul Doyle tickets for the Ahern Records Masquerade Ball if Paul helps her complete a series of New Year's resolutions before midnight, which he accepts.
Paul's older sister Kim Doyle is having trouble with her teenage daughter Hailey, who wants to spend New Year's Eve with her friends and her boyfriend Seth Anderson in Times Square, though Kim wants to spend the new year with Hailey after her divorce. Paul's best friend, comic book illustrator Randy, who hates New Year's Eve after his girlfriend left him on a date, gets stuck in an elevator with Elise, an aspiring singer who will be providing back-up for musician Daniel Jensen in his show at Times Square. Jensen is also preparing to perform at the Ahern Records ball while attempting to rekindle his relationship with his ex-fiancee, Laura.
At a nearby hospital, Claire's father Stan Harris, a man in the final stages of cancer who refuses chemotherapy and who wishes only to see the ball drop one last time, is kept company by Nurse Aimee and Nurse Mindy after his doctor reveals he will not last much longer. In the same hospital, a young couple named Griffin and Tess Byrne are about to have their first child, and they compete with another couple, James and Grace Schwab, for a bonus offered to the family of the first child born in the new year. Elsewhere, Sam, a businessman from Ahern Records, attempts to go to the Ahern Records Ball, where he is to deliver an important speech, after his car malfunctions outside New York City, all the while wondering if he should attend a meeting with a mysterious woman he met and fell in love with on the previous New Year's Eve. Sam is able get a ride from a cheerful family in an RV.
In the early evening, one of the LED panels on the Times Square Ball malfunctions, jamming the ball and forcing Claire to call Kominsky, an electrician whom the company had fired a few weeks prior. Kominsky repairs the ball before midnight, and, in gratitude, Claire leaves him in charge of the operation as she rushes to see the ball drop with her father, Stan. Meanwhile, Nurse Aimee has a video conference with her husband Chino, a soldier serving in Afghanistan. Stan passes away just after the ball drops amid a chorus of "Auld Lang Syne", with a crying Claire holding his hand.
Paul helps Ingrid complete all the items on her list, and she gives him the tickets. They later say goodbye to each other, but Paul decides to take her to the Ahern Records ball as his date. Meanwhile, Randy and Elise bond in the elevator as they share their lives and problems. Just as they are about to kiss, the elevator is repaired by the building superintendent and Elise rushes to Jensen's show. Randy notices she forgot her rubber bracelet and rushes to give it to her. At Times Square, Jensen leaves midway during his show to return to the Ahern Ball to apologize to Laura, who accepts him back and leaves with the approval of Sam. With Jensen gone, Elise is called to replace him and attracts the attention of the crowd. She kisses Randy, and they start a romantic relationship.
Griffin and Tess have their baby and, although it is born first, they lie to allow James and Grace to have the bonus after discovering they already have two other children to provide for. Meanwhile, after being forbidden from attending the celebration, Hailey runs away to Times Square, where she sees Seth being kissed by another girl, Lily, unaware that he had been kissed against his will. Heartbroken, she meets and is comforted by her mother. Kim finally realizes that she was too selfish for not allowing Hailey to spend the New Year with them. Seth finds them and apologizes, revealing Lily to have stolen a kiss from him. Hailey forgives him and kisses him back. Her mother allows her to go to an after-party. Kim then goes to a restaurant to meet Sam, who had succeeded in delivering his speech. She is revealed to be the mysterious woman whom he met one year prior, and they finally discover each other's names. The film ends with Paul and Ingrid having fun at the Ahern Records ball party.

Cast

Critical reception

On review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 7% based on 136 reviews and an average rating of 3.1/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Shallow, sappy, and dull, New Year's Eve assembles a star-studded cast for no discernible purpose." On Metacritic, the film has a score of 22 out of 100 based on 30 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale.
Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times said, "New Year's Eve is a dreary plod through the sands of time until finally the last grain has trickled through the hourglass of cinematic sludge. How is it possible to assemble more than two dozen stars in a movie and find nothing interesting for any of them to do?" Kimberley Jones of the Austin Chronicle said, "Mostly, New Year's Eve is appalling stuff, a poorly constructed, sentimental sham. Auld Lang Syne." Claudia Winkleman on the BBC One show Film said "I have found the worst film of all time, and it is called New Year's Eve." Rolling Stone shared the same opinion and gave a zero stars rating, stating "Director Garry Marshall follows last year's Valentine's Day romcom crapfest with an even more puke-up-able sample of the species" and concluding New Year's Eve is "bad beyond belief". British newspaper The Telegraph named New Year's Eve one of the ten worst films of 2011. British film critic Mark Kermode named it as the worst film of 2011. On the more positive side, Entertainment Weeklys Owen Gleiberman said, "New Year's Eve is dunderheaded kitsch, but it's the kind of marzipan movie that can sweetly soak up a holiday evening."

Box office

The film opened at the No. 1 spot at the box office with $13 million. It made $54.5 million in the United States and Canada, as well as $87.5 million in other countries, for a worldwide total of $142 million.

Accolades

The film earned five Razzie Award nominations: Worst Picture, Worst Director, Worst Actress, Worst Screenplay and Worst Screen Ensemble, losing all to Adam Sandler's Jack and Jill.
AwardCategoryRecipientsResult
Alliance of Women Film JournalistsActress Most in Need of a New AgentAll actresses in New Year's Eve
BET AwardsBest ActorCommon
Golden Raspberry AwardsWorst Picture
Golden Raspberry AwardsWorst DirectorGarry Marshall
Golden Raspberry AwardsWorst ActressSarah Jessica Parker
Golden Raspberry AwardsWorst ScreenplayKatherine Fugate
Golden Raspberry AwardsWorst Screen EnsembleThe entire cast of New Year's Eve
Golden Trailer AwardsGolden Fleece“One Night Domestic Trailer”
Teen Choice AwardsChoice Movie Scene Stealer: FemaleLea Michele

Parodies

New Year's Eve, and its predecessor Valentine's Day, were parodied in December 2011 on the sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live in a trailer for the fictional film The Apocalypse, set on the last day on Earth. They were similarly parodied on the TV show 30 Rock, in the January 2012 episode "The Ballad of Kenneth Parcell", in a trailer for a film called Martin Luther King Day, whose large cast includes Jenna Maroney.