Happy Christmas (2014)

Crappy movie but great drinking game = drink every time Anna Kendrick says "LIKE"!!! "I was like..." "She was like...." "He was like...." "We were like..." Totally horrible dialogue in a boring movie. It's like viewing other people's boring life but it just happens to be during Christmas. She's irresponsible and the brother's an enabler. That's the movie. I'm not sure why some critics liked this movie? Maybe they had seen too many good movies and this was different just because it was bad. I'm not anti Anna Kendrick, I just think she played a part in a bad movie. So to some degree, she is responsible for this flick. There are a ton of better Christmas movies to spend your time watching so disregard this on.

'HAPPY Christmas': Four Stars (Out of Five)Another mumblecore comedy drama flick, set at Christmas time, from writer/director/producer/actor (and much more) Joe Swanberg. Swanberg costars in the movie with Anna Kendrick, Melanie Lynskey, Mark Webber and Lena Dunham. It tells the story of a 20-something 'party girl' who moves in with her filmmaker brother and his writer wife (as well as their two-year-old son), in Chicago, after a break up. Like most mumblecore movies, the dialogue is entirely improvised and the story is near nonexistent. It's a good example of the genre and Swanberg is talented, at this type of film (although it's not as good as his critically acclaimed hit 'DRINKING BUDDIES', from 2013),Kendrick plays Jenny, a 20-something woman who just broke up with her boyfriend. She moves in with her older brother Jeff (Swanberg), and his wife Kelly (Lynskey), to get a new start on things. Jeff is a filmmaker and Kelly is a novelist; and the couple have a two-year- old son together, named Jude (Jude Swanberg). Jenny wants to mature and move on with her life but instead she goes right back to her partying ways; of heavy drinking, often with her friend Carson (Dunham). Her irresponsibleness scares Kelly, as Kelly worries about her baby. Jenny also starts a relationship with Kevin (Webber), a friend of Jeff and Kelly's, and attempts to inspire Kelly, in new directions with her writing, as well. I think the acting is all more than decent and natural and Kendrick is especially adorable. The characters do seem like real people and their situations and predicaments seem true to life too. These are all things a mumblecore movie should do well (to be memorable in the genre). It is a little boring and uninvolving at times, but that's to be expected. The Christmas music is a nice fitting touch and I do like the overall message, about how weed is good and alcohol is bad; whenever Jenny drinks in the film she gets in trouble and whenever she smokes pot she does good helpful things. It does feel a little heavy-handed but that's true to life as well. It's definitely a very sweet and likable film.Watch our movie review show 'MOVIE TALK' at: http://youtu.be/bPyUBLHQdWM

The low-key plot of Joe Swanberg's latest film is set in motion when a young woman breaks up with her boyfriend, and moves in with her brother, his wife and their toddler son. On Jenny's first night under Jeff and Kelly's roof, she displays her irresponsible tendencies when she goes to a party and gets seriously wasted, requiring her brother to be roused from his sleep to drive her home. Contrite over this bad beginning, Jenny suggests productive ways for Kelly to balance her creative impulses with the duties of motherhood. Unfortunately the dysfunctional behavior also persists, causing friction within the household which leads to more disruptions and minor confrontations.'Happy Christmas' extends Swanberg's move away from the ultra-basic conventions of the 'mumblecore' school, but it's still a resolutely Indie production. The film's events are depicted with subtle humor as it focuses primarily on Jenny, and her relationship with her sister-in-law. Anna Kendrick portrays the feckless Jenny as charming, vulnerable, selfish and manipulative, while the support cast back her up with nice performances. Kendrick's nuanced character study is echoed by the story's understated resolution.

One of my favorite films from last year was Drinking Buddies, which proved director and screenwriter Joe Swanberg's talent to transcend the "mumblecore" genre through a realistic and universal story which reached levels of emotional honesty we rarely find in dramas of a higher profile. His most recent film, Happy Christmas, is another "slice of life" which is simple on its shape but complex on its depth, thanks to the mutable dynamics between the main characters and the brilliant performances which reach that magic balance between improvisation and structure that immediately captures us into their experiences, and gradually invites us to discover the deepness hidden by their frivolous lives. Swanberg establishes tense and filled with emotion situations which he abandons before reaching the "dramatic climax" which seemed unavoidable. As a consequence, the scene provokes the desired impact, and at the same time, keeps a subtleness and spontaneity which might have been sacrificed in a more conventional film, where the climax of the scene is considered an end in itself, instead of working as one more step in the evolution of the characters. That's a risky strategy which couldn't be faced by any actor, but fortunately, Anna Kendrick, Lena Dunham and the great Melanie Lynskey make a perfect work, and they bring weight to those prosaic moments which should be irrelevant, but which end up revealing themselves as keys in their characters' humanity. On the negative side, Happy Christmas didn't leave me totally satisfied, and I liked it much less than Drinking Buddies. As I said, Swanberg's strategy is omitting stuff, but sometimes, he omits too much, including a concrete and cathartic ending which would have validated all the family tension we had been witnessing. The ambiguity of a sudden ending can work when it comes at the appropriate time; but in the case of Happy Christmas, it feels like an arbitrary interruption; an escape, instead of a planned resolution. I'm not asking for a "big gesture" or a forced happy ending to close the movie, but I definitely feel that Swanberg could have found a better moment to abandon the characters, without leaving us the impression that the memory card of the digital camera was filled and he said: "Well, let's leave it there. Good job, team!". That ending left me with quite a bitter taste, and it's the main reason why I wasn't left completely satisfied by this film. Nevertheless, that doesn't remove the movie's pros, and I can give it a moderate recommendation mainly because of its sober narrative and excellent performances. However, I think Drinking Buddies is a much better option than Happy Christmas; it also ends abruptly, but at least we know where the characters are heading, and that information is enough for us to tie the loose ends and to feel satisfied.