Mixed Nuts Is a Mixed Bag

I’ve been counting on Netflix to give me some new Christmas movies to watch this season. So far, the results have been less than inspiring; that continued last night when I watched Mixed Nuts, a 1994 Nora Ephron movie starring Steve Martin and Rita Wilson, along with Madeline Kahn, Adam Sandler, Anthony LaPaglia, Juliette Lewis, Rob Reiner and Liev Schreiber. It’s an A-list cast, but this cacophonous movie misses as often as it hits.

Martin is Philip, who’s in charge of a suicide hotline and is in danger of being evicted. He’s a decent guy, though he’s rather testy and completely oblivious to the fact that his earnest employee Catherine (Wilson) has a crush on him. His other employee, cranky Mrs. Munchnik (Kahn), is all too aware of it. Although she is snappish and rude, it’s easy to feel sorry for her because this particular Christmas brings her a string of abominably bad luck.

Then again, nobody in this merry band of misfits is having a great day. Street-smart fashionista Gracie (Lewis) is hugely pregnant and at odds with her volatile boyfriend, Felix (LaPaglia). Transvestite Chris (Schreiber) feels lonely and unappreciated. Eccentric ukulele player Louie (Sandler) just wants Catherine to slow down long enough to listen to the song he wrote for her. But in this movie, nobody stands still for long. The characters move swiftly from one crisis to another, getting to know each other better while trying to preserve their own sanity.

There are a lot of fun moments in the movie, from a recurring joke with a fruitcake baked by Mrs. Munchnik to the elegant dance performed by Chris and an obliging Philip. On the whole, though, while I found Martin’s character to be mostly sympathetic, he usually wasn’t particularly funny. Probably the most consistent source of humor is Kahn, who gives off a sort of nightmare mother-in-law vibe. Meanwhile, Wilson is irresistibly sweet as Catherine, who is idealistic and always anxious to help others, even as she bemoans her lack of romantic attachments.

There’s a certain tenderness in the explosive relationship between Gracie and Felix, but both are so unstable that it’s easy to imagine some type of disastrous outcome if their relationship continues. Chris is likable enough but feels out of place much of the time, while Louie, like most of Sandler’s characters, is endearing but incredibly annoying. And there’s often so much going on at once that it’s easy to miss what certain characters are saying.

Mixed Nuts is a decent holiday flick, but it’s not one to warm the cockles of your heart, and I doubt it’ll make you bust a gut either.