New Year’s Absolution, 2024
Directed by Nick Leisure.
Starring Michael Copon, Joel Brady, Josh Gilmer, Rafael Siegel, Shala White, Victoria Brandart, Siddalee Diaz and Lamondo Hill II.
SYNOPSIS:
Four longtime friends reunite for their traditional New Year’s Eve party. But things start to go awry with the arrival of a mysterious resolution: Kill Someone.
The amateur production values of New Year’s Absolution leak off the screen from the opening frame, as a cheap-looking title card appears over stock drone footage, followed by the actors’ names in a bold yellow font, dancing on and off the screen with only the flashiest of iMovie transitions. It’s effective, in letting you know exactly what kind of ride you’re in for.
We get the first sense of this film’s ‘humour’ as we meet Stuart and Travis, a couple played by Rafael Siegel and Lamondo Hill II. As Travis drives toward the home of Damon (Joel Brady), who’s hosting this year’s annual New Years’ Eve party, director Nick Leisure attempts to shock us with a rude joke, as Stuart bends down towards Travis’ crotch, a visual that would almost work if Travis didn’t have a small dog sitting on his lap. Turns out Stuart was just reaching down to pick up his phone. Hilarious.
Stuart and Damon are both members of ‘the five of ’99’, a friend group who met in 1999, of which only four remain (watch for the shocking revelation to this mystery). Damon is more concerned with arranging the coasters, and bickering with his wife Clare (Shala White) over the canapés, than making sure his friends have a good time. Don’t worry, Damon, we’re not having any fun either.
As everyone starts trickling in, the lack of chemistry between the cast members becomes increasingly apparent. ‘Lifelong friends’ Stuart and Damon interact like coworkers at an after-hours event, while ‘best friends’ Travis and Clare stand around rehearsing dialogue. This involves a lot of bitching about the others, especially the next arrivals Jacob (Josh Gilmer), an off-duty cop, and his wife Misty (Victoria Brandart). They are both vain and image-obsessed, showing off their bodies while the others snigger behind their backs about how fat they used to be.
The last to arrive are narcissistic surgeon Roy (Michael Copon), and his new girlfriend Kira (Siddalee Diaz), a shallow parody of Gen Z shallowness, whose entire character is constructed around her social media presence, and who physically cannot stand being separated from her phone. That’s the caliber of subtle social satire you can expect here.
What with the vanity, body shaming, and some casual racism and homophobia, it becomes clear that these are not nice people. There’s an obscenity to their wealth; Stuart blew 50k on a vintage car that can’t drive in the rain, and Damon forked out for a pool that he’s never swam in. Yet Leisure fails to make any kind of satirical point about the superficiality on display, because his approach to filmmaking lacks any depth of its own.
Damon’s hesitancy to get into his own pool is a key point, as his friends jokingly threaten to throw him in, and Stuart later threatens to drown him if he harms his dog Cookie, whom Damon fears will crap on his precious floors. It’s not much, but it’s nice to get some foreshadowing in a plot that’s mostly lacking in structure or craft.
Said plot eventually coughs and sputters to life when Jacob picks his new year’s resolution out of a ceremonial hat, and reads – kill someone. You might expect the group to laugh this off, but Jacob flips out, and deeper, sinister connotations are revealed. Jacob, who has been doing coke with Roy all night, then draws a loaded firearm in his drug-fueled haze, which he accidentally fires, injuring a member of the party.
This leads to some impromptu bathtub surgery from the coked-up doctor, that further highlights the film’s disconnection from reality. None of the characters react in a normal way to this development, continuing the party as if there isn’t a dude with a gunshot wound in the tub.This could’ve been an interesting satirical point about the hollowness of the upper class, except so little has been established about these characters and their relationships, that it just comes across as lazy writing.
However, it’s after this point that the film finally begins to find some (admittedly ironic) entertainment value, as the plot descends into a chain reaction of over-the-top carnage, with each character blaming another for the night’s misfortunes, and perpetuating them in grisly fashion. It’s in this last half hour that Nick Leisure’s vision of a bloody dark comedy begins to come through, and the kills are as exaggerated as they are unexpected, sparing no amount of fake blood. That said, it’s too little too late, as we’ve already wasted an hour watching these unbearable characters exchange dialogue that’s in turn laughable and dull.
New Year’s Absolution is a tonally confused, poorly put-together piece of work that is unclear in its goals, and fails to achieve them. Director Nick Leisure seems to be going for a broad black comedy, but the only laughs I found were from the piss-poor acting, ridiculous deaths, dumb editing gimmicks, and the autogenerated subtitles while rewatching the surgery scene – “It’s bleeding!” “Boobs tend to do that.”
It’s supposedly a horror/thriller, but it’s not scary or thrilling, because there’s no singular antagonistic force, and the deaths are too random, while the characters are so flat and unlikable that we neither feel nor fear for them. Though it’s possible Leisure is going for some kind of ‘eat the rich’ social satire, his approach is too bland for this to come through, and we don’t get any grounded perspective outside of these awful characters.
One question remains, however – who wrote the resolution? Don’t know. Don’t care.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ / Movie: ★
Dan Carville
