The 10 best food scenes from festive films to watch while eating, drinking and being merry
- Nothing brings people together over the holiday period like food, except, perhaps, seasonal flicks
- From the spaghetti breakfast in Elf to Home Alone’s pizza delivery scene, feast your eyes on these superlative scenes
Whenever I sit down to watch a film, I’m always curious about what the characters eat and drink. This is particularly true with older films because they offer a portal into how people dined in previous decades. Looking back on the 1983 comedy Mr. Mom, it blows my mind that the “special dinner” served to Michael Keaton after his character gets fired is a bucket of fried chicken.
Over the past week, I’ve been power-watching holiday flicks, famous or otherwise, to see what we can glean from their drinking and dining habits. I’ve come up with 10 favourite scenes, nine of which offer genuine life lessons. Or perhaps tongue-in-cheek ones. (The other is just so freaky I had to include it.)
My goal here is to entertain and maybe provoke some discussion about film, food and the true spirit of the holidays. But if, by chance, any of these takeaways generate a merrier Christmas for someone in your household, well, that will be a gift all by itself.
Opening bar scene of Bad Santa (2003)
How does he quiet the anger and shame (at least for a little while)? It’s the same coping strategy that millions of us use: he drinks, usually to excess. “Where I come from, we didn’t celebrate Christmas. Not because we were Jewish, but because my dad was a worthless coward … whose idea of a present was a daily punch to the back of his head,” Willie says in the opening narration, with Chopin playing in the background.
“My Dad never did s*** with his life, so he took it out on me. You could say I’m no different.” Raise a glass to the walking wounded among us at Christmastime.