Wink, wink jokes of ‘Spirited’ reek of eye-rolling smugness

“Spirited”
PG-13 | 127 minutes
Director: Sean Anders
Starring: Will Ferrell, Ryan Reynolds, Octavia Spencer

While Charles Dickens may be the inspiration for “Spirited,” this flick stands no chance of knocking any previous venture in the Christmas Movie game off a top 10 list. While there are some genuinely unexpected plot developments, the gags are hit and miss, too reliant on the now-standard Reynolds glib. 

“Spirited” attempts to invert Dickens’ story, focusing instead on the ghosts’ missions rather than the malcontent’s moral redemption. The Ghost of Christmas Present (Will Ferrell) is feeling disillusioned with his haunting job alongside his colleagues Jacob Marley (Patrick Page), the Ghost of Christmas Past (Sunita Mani), and the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come (Loren Woods but voiced by Tracy Morgan). He’s started to wonder whether their hauntings make any real difference in the world.

For his next redemption project, Present chooses Clint Briggs (Ryan Reynolds), a cynical, self-serving spin doctor who lies and manufactures conflicts on social media for a living. He’s a cynical Scrooge, a charismatic combination of, as Present says, Mussolini and Ryan Seacrest. As Present helps guide Clint through his Dickensian journey, Clint turns the tables each step of the way, leaving Present examining his own past, present and future — with the help of a few show tunes along the way, naturally.

Oh — did I mention this is also a musical? Or at least there are musical numbers sprinkled throughout this period comedy featuring two non-musical leads. This is all to say, if you are a fan of musicals, keep an eye on the backup crew because their choreography is quite impressive. 

While “Spirited” is more than comfortable mocking itself (“Christmas with Deadpool” might have been more entertaining as its working title), it also ends up feeling embarrassed at the decision to make it a musical. The songs are frequently interrupted by other characters and forgotten entirely during the overlong Christmas Past section. One “oh no, not a song” gag is fine, but repeating it makes “Spirited” act like it’s too cool for musicals.

The wink, wink jokes for the adults reek of eye-rolling smugness (it’s the kind of film where a character watches a song-and-dance number and asks, “Why are they singing?” to the answer of, “Because they’re in a musical”), and this clashes with the film’s often embarrassingly straight-faced earnestness, most visible in the film’s many, many musical set pieces.

By far the strangest and biggest miss in this movie was the inclusion of child suicide. While covering heavy subjects in a comedy isn’t unheard of, this was something that wasn’t developed enough and came out of left field. It’s never good when you leave the audience feeling bad for not feeling bad about watching a child commit suicide. 

Clint’s whole thing as a PR executive is to create (often fake) outrage online to benefit his clients. When his niece Wren (Marlow Barkley) comes to him for help for the student council president election, Clint decides to use this tactic to help her win.

He asks Kimberly (Octavia Spencer) to do opposition research on Wren’s competition Josh (Maximillian Piazza). When it comes to the Yet-To-Come section, Clint watches on as Wren leads the student council; he then finds himself at a memorial — and it’s revealed that Josh has died, implying that he died by suicide as a result of online bullying.

Covering such topics in a festive movie isn’t a no-go, but it needs to be addressed with more depth and care than “Spirited” does.

Clint obviously realizes the severity of the situation after the child is dead but insists he wasn’t to know. The main issue I have with the scene is that even before he deals with that, he runs into the next Yet-To-Come scenario where he sees his grave and jokes, “93. Not bad.”

“Spirited” goes from covering an implied child’s suicide to a glib joke about old age in a minute. It’s this muddled tone that ultimately has no resolution for the character. It’s trauma for the sake of trauma. If you’re going to include such a serious subject for emotional effect, you need to give it the careful attention it deserves. ♦