Anyone who knows me, knows that this is my favorite Christmas special. Anyone who just learns this fact and has seen the movie always ways, “Why?”. I have yet to ever meet someone who even said they didn’t mind this Christmas special.
Netflix took away their “five star ratings” to be able to see how good/bad people think something is, but I believe that it was somewhere between 2-3 stars. I don’t use rotten tomatoes, but if you do then you can take a look here.
The Beginning
The special starts out in Murray’s hotel room, to a somewhat disgruntled Murray singing “Christmas” blues with Paul Shaffer on piano. Murray does well whenever he sings, he clearly knows his range and how to have fun within it– often substituting a variation of voices or spoken word lyrics in lieu of note range.
The opening sequence of the special certainly hints to Murray’s inner child and spirit. Him having antlers on showed me that he really did have high hopes and a Christmas spirit before the storm hitting the tri-state area came in and ruined everything.
Murray isn’t in high spirits and is a grouch for having had his holiday special ruined by the weather. It’s here we’re introduced to Dimitri, he’s a lovely comedic relief throughout this.
Then in comes Amy Poehler and Julie White as Murray’s producers “Liz” and “Bev”. It’s unbeknownst to me if Murray was actually paying homage to his real-life producers or not, but this is the first of a handful of his hollywood friends come to join him in this special. Also, good on you Mr. Murray for saying the name of the movie in the movie, always appreciated, “Murray Christmas” isn’t exactly it, but I’ll take it.
Poehler and White do well here, playing “bad” cop and “good” cop to convince Murray to carry on with the special despite the storm preventing anyone from having actually been there. They succeed as one would suspect, and the plot continues.
Look, I really don’t know why they did this, but it really made me laugh out loud when they introduced Michael Sera as “Jackie the Talent Agent”. It really wasn’t ever apparent to me that he was playing a character upon first watch, I really did laugh out loud that Michael Sera was trying to become Murray’s agent. Whether he’s playing Jackie or himself I still am not sure why they picked him, but I really do think there was nobody better that they could’ve chosen for that ha. It made for a really awkward moment. To me, this would have been funnier if all of the stars were actually themselves.
So after the run in with the talent agent, they make it down to the ballroom and the stage. This sequence was ok, I thought the ballroom was way too small for what they were setting this up to be in the story. Especially considering that the POPE was supposed to be there, and sitting next to Iggy Azalea nonetheless! Ha!
Murray breaks down
Murray can’t do the show, he loses himself a bit and then it’s a CHRISmas miracle because, Murray just happens to run into Chris Rock walking by. Chris is smart, he tries to not get wrangled into the Christmas special but gets forced into it. Peer pressure, often works.
We have another musical number finally, “Do You Hear What I Hear?” as a duet between Murray and Rock. The fact that they managed to get matching turtlenecks and the camera transitions were just magnificent. You can also read the faces here that Murray is just overjoyed and that he can finally have a little bit of the special or at least, someone to share in the torture with him. In contrast, the Rock’s face goes back and forth between hating his life and feigning having a good time. “God” seems to hear Chris’ prayers and halfway through the power goes out and without hesitation he books it.
Murray is saved, a wedding is put on hold
The power going out across the Eastern Seaboard was good in more ways than one, it allowed the special to finally be cancelled. Everyone feels a little lighter and Bill and Paul head to the hotel bar for a drink. Murray asks Paul, “You haven’t stopped drinking have ya?”, and Paul replies, “Should I?” and they proceed to the bar.
This is where they meet Jenny Lewis as The Waitress and she duets “Baby it’s Cold Outside” with Murray. One of the better songs in the special and definitely one of the better singers. Lewis has a very lovely and sweet voice and the sound done on this song is better than a good amount of others.
Suddenly, the wails of French Chefs call The Waitress and Murray to the kitchen where we find all of the food for a wedding slowly going bad as the hotel doesn’t have a spare generator apparently… instead of letting the food go to waste Murray convinces them to send the food out for all the guests stuck inside the hotel.
As the food goes out, it’s being rolled past Rashida Jones as The Bride, she looks sad and Murray goes to console her. After a really cringy attempt at giving her “Murray” advice he lets her be by herself and heads in to the bar to join everyone in getting food and drink.
Not one to eat and drink without music, Murray goes through the room in an attempt to get some Christmas spirit drummed up. After giving everyone a fair try they go with the French Chefs, which were actually the band Phoenix, I guess this is what they do between albums.
This song is by far my favorite song in the whole movie. It’s lyrics and the upbeat spirit just really get to me. This Christmas special came out right when I moved away from home and I didn’t go home for Christmas that year so a song called “Alone on Christmas Day” really resonated with me. Plus, come on, they wrote this song specifically for this movie, how can you not like it? Especially when you consider the lyrics.
Side note: it seems that the band was actually playing their instruments here? I’m not sure, it’s really hard to tell. I think this was the case but there were times that the players hands didn’t match what I was hearing? Maybe they were just playing back the music on set somehow and everyone was pretending to play (more likely the case to ensure clean onset audio). I know there was something happening because there is at least one time where I heard two mics going at once and one seemed to have a more “open” room sound.
After the performance, Murray continues to entertain himself by mettling in the affairs of the couple who was supposed to get married that day by playfully accosting “Elliot”. Murray gets cut short by Maya Rudolph though as The Lounge Singer steps in to give Elliot some advice in a sexy “hotel singer knows the secrets of the world” kinda way.
Baby, please change the key…
This next moment, this song right here “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” sung by Maya Rudolph.. this is why I think people have trouble loving the special and I really can’t blame them. Firstly the backup singers are very meh, maybe they could have had a slightly more interesting or arranged part? Maybe a couple waiters in there for range? I know they probably didn’t want to take away from Maya but she definitely needed a little bit of help.
Now I don’t know what to say about Maya’s voice, it is so good but it is a little too back in her throat, making everything slightly flat. I was trying to listen to it and it mostly does sound on pitch but there’s something ever so slightly off about it.. I’m guessing they used a pitch correction software called “Melodyne” to correct it and that I’m just hearing the every so light artifacts or I’m hearing the little bit off from it sounding natural. Not only that but for some reason it sounded like she had a lisp!! I think the post engineer likely de-essing her sibilant consonants, which I understand but it was a little too much here if that was the case– the “s’s” should be brought down, but not to the point to where it sounds like a lisp. I have highly trained ears from eight years of playing the violin, getting an opera degree, and being an audio engineer– I hear this stuff well.
I think the real thing that hindered Rudolph’s performance here was the key. It was clear that she started at the top of her applicable range and as the song continued, how much strain she was putting in her vocal chords. It seemed to me that she was singing with her throat rather than singing with her airflow/abdomen. This strain made her wipe her voice out very quickly and by the end of the song her voice was shredded.
I’m not sure why she didn’t choose another key to sing in, one that allowed her to start lower and end up in her power house range. I can tell and know that she’s a somewhat skilled singer otherwise (you can see this elsewhere in the special as well as other places where she sings, like the Netflix show Big Mouth), her falsetto was nice and her low range is good but the high area in her throat that she wanted to sing from was not so good. The performance was great and the stage presence was great but her use of her instrument was lacking; considering the performance I heard it seems doubtful that she even practiced this song beforehand to make it good. Did she not want to do well? Maybe she didn’t have the time? A real mystery…
However, despite all this I couldn’t help but think, you know, if I thought this was bad, there’s no way that someone involved in the production didn’t think it was bad too (smart people there). Which leads me to see the true beauty in including this as it was. See, ultimately, this is a Christmas special for Bill Murray to make for fun with all of his Hollywood friends. It’s likely someone else had the same thoughts as me, they could have removed or changed so many things about that number and yet they let Rudolph do it the way that she did it.
This shows me they really did just do it for fun, and the joy of making something with your friends. Nobody is doing it for it to be “good” and that makes it even more beautiful when you think about it that way in my opinion.
Cake anyone?
In comes The Wife with her melting wedding cake, her husband and of course, Bill Murray comes to meet her. Murray shares his theory of love with the two young lovebirds and encourages them to sing about when they first felt their love for each other with the first non-Christmas song “I saw the Light”.
Schwartzman’s voice here I really liked, I thought it was a sweet way to kind of tip toe in and as a “random groom with no prior musical experience” really fit the bill. Jones’ voice was like honey, she sung really well and the Bride and Groom’s voices fit well together.
Just as the couple starts to get their stride David Johhansen as the Bartender jumps in singing to the Lounge Singer for a little quartet for no reason, but it’s still a lovely moment AND a look at Maya’s voice outside of trying to hit those notes at the very top of her range.
After this song it’s actually Christmas and the whole bar joins in for a round of “Fairytale of New York” which was one of the best Christmas songs I didn’t know about before watching this special. Really lovely of course. The mixing during the group parts could maybe have been better, but I would need to see what they were working with before making a judgement for sure.
Murry passes out
He wakes up on a soundstage in Queens (LOVE THE FOURTH WALL BREAK) decorated in all white and sing “Sleigh Ride” with Clooney, and Miley Cyrus (in a sexy red dress, call back humor! Murray didn’t need that manager guy after all, he got Miley himself) with The Rocketts puling them in on the sleigh coming in hot to join them.
The costumes and transition to a sew setting was fun. I would say I am slightly disappointed that Miley was dubbed for this song but I do understand, she’s got an image to uphold and really her quality of voice was absolutely refreshing. Gotta say also, I love how Paul plays the piano as well as just his general demeanor– he is a welcome entity throughout the entire special.
Speaking of those two.. Murray is smart enough to see that as well and is nice enough to give us a song with just the two of them performing “Silent Night”, where once again Miley shows us, you can definitely be an awesome rocker and come back down to Earth to sing an absolutely gorgeous Christmas classic and she does it well.
Santa Claus is a horn dog
Now, we can’t let this turn into a boring old standard Christmas special, especially not Murray’s. We transition into another good Christmas song I had never heard before this “Santa Claus Wants Some Lovin””, which was really lot of fun here, and easily the best part of this section is G. Clooney creeping back through the Christmas trees and only peeking out to say “Santa Claus wants some lovin'”. Murray and Clooney have such a baller friendship and personality, I would really love to meet the two of them.
We come back to the white sound stage for a Murray/Cyrus duet of “Let It Snow”. A good transition back to the traditional. Again, I was disappointed by the fact that at least Miley seemed to be dubbed here but I couldn’t be too mad, she really does have such an amazing singing voice.
How about pancakes for breakfast?
They wrap up the song in a big finale and snow falling across the screen as a transition to Bill Murray waking up to the sound of powdered sugar being added to his pancakes on Christmas morning. Ignoring the weirdness that is Dimitri and Paul already being in Murray’s room before he wakes, what better way to start a Christmas morning with your friends other than by singing, “We Wish You a Merry Christmas”?
“Merry Christmas Everyone,” Bill Murray says, closing out his Christmas present to us, the viewers, while gazing out at the New York and fading to black.
Don’t close Netflix just yet though, you may miss the bit at the end with is Rudolph drinking by herself to a beautiful piano arrangement of “Alone on Christmas Day” while having one last sassy remark to close the special. Murray giving the last word of the whole show to Rudolph further shows me how much they must truly like her. I can see why too, I’ve always liked her too, this special was just my first time ever hearing her sing.
In conclusion,
Unfortunately I don’t believe this special will receive the recognition it deserves until Murray is no longer with us. “You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone” as the saying goes. I wish that wasn’t the case, but at least eventually there will be more who are able to view it as really something special.
All and all this is my favorite Christmas special. Once you realize that the beginning (easily the worst part of the show other than Rudolph’s rendition of “Baby Please Come Home”) is really just Murray setting everything up so that he can have a fun Christmas special for the rest of it, you can forgive some things a little more.
To see Murray’s Character transform from grumbly grouch who says God “hates him” and only wants everything to be over, to the real life of the party once that weight was lifted off of him was really fun. At that point he’s one of the most cheery ones because his situation worked out, but now there are other people who are not having the most amazing time being taken away from their friends and families.
Murray takes it upon himself to cheer everyone up and make the best of their situation(s) and their Christmas (Eve).
I really relate to that, I relate trying to cheer people up who are down and showing people the bright side to things. It’s what I often do in my day-to-day life.
December to January is a special time regardless of your personal beliefs. It is the planting of a seed of a new year. It is magical and it is full of promise waiting to bloom a fruit into the spring. Christmas is a time for giving thanks, and looking forward to the coming future. We are cold, but we do have life and sometimes you spend that life making fun Christmas specials just for the heck of it, and doing things just for the heck of it is sometimes the best reason to have.
I hope you’ll give this special a watch and can enjoy it yourself (head on over to Netflix), though I totally understand if you want to watch something else haha there are certainly many other movies with a lot better of a story.
All the best,
FCP 🙃
Next Article (When I say “You” here, I don’t necessarily mean “You”)
Previous Article (Thanksgiving and Gratitude)