Office Christmas Party is, more or less, exactly what you're expecting: a funny-ish ensemble comedy with holiday-season trappings in which a bunch of famous faces play roles you've seen them play over and over again.
Jason Bateman* is putting the finishing touches on his divorce as Office Christmas Party begins; he's wry and resigned to his station in life, rolling with the punches. Once Bateman gets into the office, he and T.J. Miller—the spacey son of the recently departed boss who heads the branch of their tech firm—head out to a Chicago department store to pick up gifts for their workers. In a cost-cutting move, HQ wants them to hand out mouse pads for Christmas, but T.J.'s having none of that: he's filled with the Christmas spirit!
The office is staffed with standard types: Kate McKinnon is a fussy HR lady with the bug eyes; Rob Corddry is a horndog customer service manager; Randall Park is polite-but-weird; Jamie Chung plays a millennial who doesn't know how to dress appropriately; Vanessa Bayer wears a huge grin to hide a slightly crazier edge; Olivia Munn is a hot nerd. You get the idea. Their world is thrown into chaos when CEO Jennifer Aniston, who to everyone's surprise is playing a stern parental/boss-type figure, tells them that the branch will be radically downsized in the midst of the holiday season unless they close a deal with Courtney B. Vance's company to provide it with servers.
Vance is disillusioned with the modern corporate scene, disgusted that companies treat their workers callously. To show that Xenotech (or maybe it was Zenotech or possibly Zino… oh, whatever, it doesn't matter) is a Company That Cares, T.J. Miller decides to throw a massive party and invite Vance over. Shenanigans ensue, and eventually everyone learns the true meaning of the holiday spirit—not the Christmas spirit, naturally, as that would rile McKinnon's HR woman's sense of inclusivity.
Look, Office Christmas Party is fine. I laughed out loud a couple of times. It's not as funny as it needs to be to make it a must-watch in theaters, but it's not so terrible that you should avoid it at all costs. It's more or less exactly what you'd expect from the ads and the trailers. The standout turns belong to Jillian Bell and Abbey Lee, playing a pimp and a high-cost escort, respectively; they're introduced into the mix when one of the dorkier employees tries to prove to his coworkers that his hot girlfriend is real.
I was pleasantly surprised to see Abbey Lee pop up; her hooker-with-a-heart-of-stone injects some liveliness into the proceedings despite her few minutes of screen time. Perhaps because she's not an established face, Lee actually gets to do some acting in the film, shifting from light-and-bubbly to menacing and back again on a dime. Lee offered a standout supporting performance in The Neon Demon earlier this year, bringing a soulful intensity to the murderous model Sarah. There was something vulnerable and sad about her character, a mood that contrasted smartly with the restrained, preternaturally confident Jesse (Elle Fanning). The Neon Demon only really works because of the scenes in which Sarah is shown to be aging out of her chosen profession in her mid-twenties; Lee's alternately aching and piercing eyes sell the quiet desperation her character exudes.
I guess what I'm saying is that every movie—including Office Christmas Party!—with Abbey Lee is a little bit better and I hope she continues to find roles suited to her talents. Preferably some with a little more time on the screen.
*I'm just going to go ahead and dispense with character names; do you mind? Of course you don't, because you're not coming to this movie to see "Josh Parker," you're coming to see Jason Bateman.