Grocery Stores at Christmas

Go (1999)

It’s 10pm, you’re slowly pushing a cart down the aisle of a grocery store. The florescent lights overhead flicker slightly as “Have yourself a Merry Little Christmas” plays softly in the background. You’re bundled up, wearing a hat and scarf, it’s warm and you feel like everyone around you might be moving in slow motion. You just want to take a nap on a pile of rice bags. You grab three bags of marshmallows for some reason. Is any of this really even happening?

The vibes in the grocery store at Christmas time are fucked up in a slow yet chaotic way. Especially during off-peak hours. Every time I catch this vibe, it reminds me of the movie Go (1999) - an underrated Xmas classic.

The surreal grocery store feeling is perfectly captured in the opening scenes, set in a supermarket, where Ronna (Sarah Polley), Claire (Katie Holmes, and Manny (Nathan Bexton) are working on what we can assume is Christmas Eve (or close to it). Ronna’s working overtime to avoid being evicted when she’s approached by Adam (Scott Wolf) and Zack (Jay Mohr) to buy 20 hits of ecstasy. Ronna then pays a visit to drug dealer Todd Gaines (Timothy Olyphant), which kicks off 90 minutes of raves, accidental violence, car chases and a bunch of really bad decisions (why does she flush the drugs!). Todd Gaines is a really great iteration of the slightly unhinged hottie dirtbag drug dealer archetype.

The movie itself is pretty good, but the way it captures that particularly twisted vibe of Christmas in LA is damn near perfect. Give it a watch, it’s a good January movie too.