And yet all the ingredients are there: it’s an original property with built-in sequel potential, a cast full of all those people you like off the TV, and a set-up designed for impropriety, awkwardness and slapstick. It makes good use of all these, and does a deft job of giving enough screen time to a pretty big, and deserving, cast. Starting well with a Jason Bateman we’ve seen a few hundred times before – nice guy with something missing in his life – it then throws up some treats. TJ Miller doing his usual thing: bit of a dick, but this time with a heart thrown in; Kate McKinnon as the compliance-obsessed HR rep; a great subplot in which Karan Soni needs a made-up girlfriend to bring along to the party. Maybe, just maybe, it’s down to Jennifer Aniston’s Carol. It’s the part’s fault rather than hers, but her standard-issue Queen Bitch role, the CEO wanting to shut the party down, feels like it’s from another era. Take away everyone’s bonuses and perks (in a cool, innovative tech company), without warning, to cut costs? Does even the most hard-nosed boss think that’s likely to prove productive? Seeing her alongside Miller and McKinnon is a tonic, because she can joust and improvise with the best of them, but she deserves better than what the script serves up for her. You could also question why, she and Bateman being the same age, they played a couple in 2010 romcom The Switch, and now she’s the older authority figure while they cast Munn (eleven years younger) as the girl he flirts with. Expect to see Aniston playing his mother in ten years or so. Certainly the fake girlfriend subplot could’ve been played up more, and Soni’s Nate could’ve been sent way further down that rabbit hole than he is. But I’m not sure any of this explains why the laughter died down. I was mainly still enjoying it, and there were pockets of chuckling dotted around me, but it wasn’t riding a steady wave of laughs anymore and everyone knew it.
