Happy Christmas, 2014
Directed by Joe Swanberg
Starring Anna Kendrick, Melanie Lynskey, Mark Webber, Lena Dunham and Joe Swanberg
SYNOPSIS:
After a break up, Jenny moves in with writer Kelly, her filmmaker husband, and their child. Despite a rocky start, Jenny’s influence helps Kelly realize that an evolution in her life, career and relationship is necessary for her happiness.
Joe Swanberg made quite the name for himself with last year’s Drinking Buddies. So much so that he was so busy touring the movie, he had to ditch his usual three-movies-a-year schedule to produce just one for 2014. What we get is indie comedy Happy Christmas starring Anna Kendrick – a movie that has such little point, you have to wonder why he bothered in the first place.
Taking place over the festive period, Happy Christmas sees Jenny (Kendrick) getting out of a relationship and moving into the basement of her brother Jeff (Swanberg) and his wife Kelly (Melanie Lynskey). There she starts a friendship with Kelly who is coming to terms with her life as a mother struggling to write her second novel as well as baby-siter-cum-pot-dealer Kevin.
During an interview with Flickering Myth, Swanberg discussed how we wasn’t a very good writer which is why all of his movies are improvised. He gives his actors plot beats they need to hit for each scene but then lets them take control. What this creates is a very unique movie experience in which the actors are clearly speaking with their own minds though the mouths of their characters. No one has the same voice and this can be quite refreshing. What this also means however is that many scenes play out longer than they need and a lot of the time they serve little purpose. It also means that Anna Kendrick spends the majority of the movie struggling to finish a sentence.
Swanberg deserves a lot of credit for this style of direction as if there is a positive to Happy Christmas, it feels incredibly natural. A few scenes have a forced tone to them but a good 95% of Happy Christmas feels genuine. Jenny doesn’t feel like a caricature of a down-on-her luck girl who is coming to terms with being an adult, Kelly doesn’t feel like a stereotypical mother figure and Jeff has a nice balance of brotherly-love and parental-responsibility.
The biggest problem with Happy Christmas however is that the film goes nowhere and it goes nowhere slowly. Like real life, scenes just play into each other with no real drive or point. Because everyone is having natural conversations, they tend to be very drab and lifeless to listen to which makes them hard to engage with. Real-life being captured up on screen isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but Happy Christmas is just a bore and a real slog to sit through. At around the 50-minute mark, there are signs of a plot starting as Kelly and Jenny work together to write a book, but this is then reduced to a handful of scenes with no resolution.
All of the actors do a fine job with the material, but there is nothing really worthy of note. Kendrick is likeable enough and, while she is a mess, she doesn’t beg for sympathy like Lena Dunham’s character in Girls. Dunham here is also serviceable as the best friend and Lynskey is quite nice as the quiet mother who is content with life but would like more. Perhaps the true highlight of the movie is Swanberg’s real-life son who plays Jeff and Kelly’s child as the kid is a true natural. And if all it takes for you to get a smile is seeing a baby act natural up on screen, then Happy Christmas is right up your alley. Although it does say a lot about the characters when they are being out-performed by an infant who doesn’t know what a camera is.
Happy Christmas will play to a certain audience and if you liked the slow and drab pace of Drinking Buddies then you’ll find a lot to like here. If you’re outside of that audience, you will struggle with Happy Christmas as it drags its feet through each scene with little-to-no-point. Joe Swanberg is a very talented director and a very likeable personality, but this is not his finest work.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★
Luke Owen is one of Flickering Myth’s co-editors and the host of the Flickering Myth Podcast. You can follow him on Twitter @LukeWritesStuff.
You can buy Happy Christmas on VOD here.
Originally published July 25, 2014. Updated April 12, 2018.
