The Ref
The first scene of this film sets the tone for the next 90-something minutes. We see Lloyd and Caroline in marriage counseling on Christmas Eve. Their therapist is trying to keep the peace, but these two start to go off on one another with vulgar abandon. This isn’t your typical holiday film. But there’s a moment at the end of these scenes where in the heat of the moment, when the therapist tries to calm them down, and Lloyd (a never-snarkier Kevin Spacey) and Caroline (Judy Davis)– almost on cue –team up to give the therapist a mutual, “Fuck You!”. My mother points to this moment as the one where you know that everything is going to be alright with this pair; over the years, I’ve come to agree with her on this.
Parallel to this meeting we see Gus, a cat burglar played with sarcastic and malicious glee by Denis Leary who’s in the middle of robbery that goes wrong. How wrong? He gets sprayed with cat piss, falls down a trap door Road Runner-style, and gets bitten by a dog…named Cannibal. During the getaway, Gus takes Caroline (who’s in a drug store after their session; Lloyd is in the car) hostage, and that’s when the film gets really crazy.
How unusual is this as a Christmas classic? I mean, besides the vulgarity (“The day you see anything through to the end I’ll stick my own dick in my ear.”), blackmail (Lloyd and Caroline’s son Jesse has a nice little savings built up), hostage situations (“Mary, gag your grandma.”), and a drunken Santa (“Maybe me and the Easter Bunny will take a fucking cruise to Jamaica so you can eat your own…lousy…cook…ing…”)? Just take a look at the producers: Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer. That’s right, the producers of “Top Gun,” “The Rock,” “Days of Thunder” and “Beverly Hills Cop” produced a Christmas movie. If anything, “The Ref” shows the blockbuster producers at their savviest: they hire great actors (like supporting aces Raymond J. Berry, Christine Baranski, and the particularly venomous grandmother Glynis Johns) for a deep cast of memorable characters; they get smart writers to shape the script (in this case, Richard LaGravenese and Marie Weiss, who find just the right tone of merry comedy and wicked mirth, and a beguiling heart that sneaks up on you thanks to the work of Spacey and Davis); and they hired Ted Demme, nephew to Oscar-winner Jonathan, to direct. Demme directed too few films before dying too soon at 38, but the ones of his I’ve seen (including this, 2001’s “Blow” and his underappreciated “Beautiful Girls”) were all smart, funny and exciting bits of human drama.
“The Ref” is my favorite film of his by far, and honestly, it’s probably my favorite holiday film ever. It’s a subversive family comedy elevated by the performances of its main actors (yeah, Leary is basically just playing a version of himself, but he more than holds his own with Spacey and Davis). Yes, it delves into silly pratfalls and sitcom situations, but I defy you to try and not admit that deep down, this family is– at least at times –not unlike your own. I would never have said to either of my grandmothers, “Your husband ain’t dead lady. He’s hiding.”, but if nothing else, such moments make you really stop and think that in the end, I guess your family could be worse. I know mine could be. But we’re better for having “The Ref” to watch Christmas after Christmas.
