The Brothers Claus
Like poinsettias and fruitcakes, Christmas movies are more ubiquitous this time of year than they are actually eagerly anticipated, so it’s hard to figure why David Dobkin would stoop to making one after “Wedding Crashers,” or why Vince Vaughn would agree to star. Word is, people are worried about taking their children in case it turns out to be a raunchy kids’ Christmas movie, but it seems to me that the biggest hurdle for “Fred Claus” will be transcending its promotional materials -- that poster of Vaughn on a tricycle wearing an expression of irrepressible delight makes one very badly want to repress it, even if one generally roots for Vince Vaughn, like I do. Anyone who’s actually seen “Wedding Crashers” knows that the joke at the chewy center of Vaughn’s comic persona is that he tends to play a sensitive, if oafish, humanist in the vein of Holden Caulfield or similar. The rest of the cast is spectacular, and “Fred Claus” turns out to be not bad for a Santa movie, which I suppose could be interpreted as either faint or excessive praise, depending on your view.
Fred Claus (Vaughn) is a Chicago repo man who, after failing to raise enough money to start a business, runs afoul of some Salvation Army Santas and gets thrown in jail. Unable to reach his girlfriend, Wanda Blinkowski (Rachel Weisz), who thinks he stood her up, Fred calls his younger brother, Santa (Paul Giamatti), who is incapable of saying no.
Santa, meanwhile, is experiencing his own troubles. The increase in children’s greediness worldwide has made it hard for him to keep up with holiday toy demand, and the corporate behemoth that now calls the shots at the North Pole has sent an efficiency expert (Kevin Spacey) to determine whether the operation should be shut down. Seeing opportunity, Santa promises Fred the money he needs if he will come help out during crunch time.
“Fred Claus” is a comedy about sibling rivalry that could have been as broad and crass as these things tend to be when handled badly, but Vaughn and Dobkin have explored this territory together before, and they cleverly peg the rivalry to a wounded sibling love. Mother Claus (Kathy Bates) preferred Nicholas to Fred from the day he was born. Even as an adult, Fred hasn’t gotten over his resentment toward his brother, and Christmas only exacerbates it.
In “Wedding Crashers,” Vaughn’s rather hapless, misunderstood and depressive character played off the sunny equanimity of Owen Wilson. Here, his other is Giamatti, a human polestar of intensity playing a middle-aged guy with the weight of the world on his shoulders. The intensity of their relationship, with its incalculable baggage, grounds a fluffy and familiar conceit -- dude steps in for Santa -- in something much more interesting. As in many of his comedies, you get the feeling that Vaughn contributed extensively to his dialogue, especially his rambling, nervous monologues that are as funny as they are pathetic. Giamatti is exhausted and beleaguered as the guy everyone asks too much of, and he makes a pretty credible Santa for the globalized age.
Fred’s trip to the North Pole begins with a terrifying sleigh ride courtesy of Willie (John Michael Higgins), Santa’s main elf. When Fred arrives in the bustling polar city, which looks like the Grove at Christmastime, Santa puts him in charge of the Naughty/Nice list. This causes problems for Fred, whose feelings of abandonment were routinely mistaken for naughtiness. After attending a “Siblings Anonymous” meeting where he meets Frank Stallone, Roger Clinton and Stephen Baldwin (as themselves), and seeing firsthand what his brother has to contend with, Fred begins to be able to move on.
It seems fitting that the Scrooge of Christmas Present would stalk around dangling the gift of pink slips. Spacey is excellently scary as the slick, be-suited efficiency expert who threatens Santa with “streamlining, consolidating and outsourcing.” And Giamatti is convincing as the saintly do-gooder who’s too busy to notice how his saintly do-goodness might have affected his less-gifted older brother. The sweetest thing about “Fred Claus” is that the message about filial love feels genuine. I wouldn’t have expected that watching Giamatti tell Vaughn, “You’re the best big brother anyone could ask for,” would make me choke up, but it did.
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“Fred Claus.” MPAA rating: PG for mild language and some rude humor. Running time: 1 hour, 56 minutes. In general release.
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