Animated She & Him holiday video follows Zooey Deschanel's divorce

By Randy Lewis

Dec. 18, 2012 12 AM PT

You’re a celebrity, it’s almost Christmas and your divorce has just become final. What to do?

If you’re Zooey Deschanel, you put out a new holiday video -- in this case, a spritely animated clip to accompany her performance of the holiday standard “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” with her frequent collaborator M. Ward taken from their charmingly low-key 2011 album “A Very She & Him Christmas.”

For the time-tested holiday duet, Deschanel and Ward flipped the usual assignment of vocal parts so that she’s begging him to stick around in their romantic mountain love nest, while he struggles valiantly to make his departure. The female character resorts to an arsenal of tools -- a shovel, bolt cutters, a leaf/snow blower, a gargantuan pipe wrench -- to foil his escape.

The video was directed by Elliot Dear and captures an angular animation style that parallels the retro feel of the track and She & Him’s whole album.

Their album was one of the highlights of last year’s crop of holiday music releases. Deschanel’s divorce from Death Cab for Cutie singer Ben Gibbard became final last week, following what was described as a “mutual and amicable” separation around Halloween 2011, about two years after they were married.

See She & Him’s “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” video here: