As you might be able to see from the tiny print on the poster above, Happy Christmas is from the director of Drinking Buddies, a horribly disappointing movie in my opinion. Joe Swanberg is his name, and improvised dialogue movies are his game. Which is all well and good if said improvisation is interesting, which in Drinking Buddies fell flat for me. Four actors I greatly enjoy in a movie that has a focus on beer should have been a home run, but man, it was just boring and unsatisfying.
But this isn't about Drinking Buddies (although that's the third time I've written it so far), this is about Happy Christmas, which I enjoyed much more than, the now-not-going-to-be-mentioned other movie. One thing though, before going on, despite the name, I wouldn't really consider this a Christmas movie. Yes, the credits depict decorations, and the movie takes place in the few weeks leading up to Christmas, and ends on the day itself, but it's just not a focus of the movie. It's a family drama that happens to fall on Christmas.
Let me just start from the beginning. Joe Swanberg (the director, who refuses to put his name in the credits as an actor despite being a main character) plays Jeff, the father of a two-year-old who works somehow with movies. His wife, Kelly, played by Melanie Lynskey, stays at home with their son (played by Swanberg's real-life son), but is also shown to be a writer (who clearly doesn't have much time to let her creative juices flow). Everyone's happy, so obviously something must go wrong, otherwise why would this exist.
Enter Anna Kendrick playing Jeff's sister, Jenny. She's in her late twenties and just broke up with her boyfriend, and more importantly seems to be kind of drifting in life. In addition, her stay with her brother seems to be somewhat open-ended. The night she arrives, she goes out with an old friend and just gets blasted. Like border-line stomach-pumping blasted. I think the implication with this scene is that although she says she is fine with the break-up, she's clearly not fine. She passes out at the party and her friend calls Jeff to come pick her up.
Kelly is not happy with how Jenny acted. She thinks it's immature and could have led to some problems if she had left the door open or done some other stupid drunk thing, especially if this type of behavior continues. We first see this through the couple's hiring of a babysitter in lieu of the initial plan of having Jenny watch Jude (the toddler). On one hand, it's kind of an overreaction, at least from the eyes of a non-parent. But on the other hand, if drunky slept in until 2, you can't really expect her to be that alert, even if you had woken her up earlier.
So things started rocky, but Jenny straightens out a bit. She ends up calling the babysitter because he had offered to sell her weed if she needed, and apparently, she does. Upon arrival at his place, there's a number of red flags that the babysitter has intentions of taking the night to Bone Town. First, he offers a drink, which could be solely a nice gesture, but he leans on the hard alcohol side of things, settling on whisky, and as the saying goes, "whisky makes you frisky." Number two, he gave her the weed for free, like not just sharing his stash, but giving her shit to take home. To give a non-drug example, if you went to a friend's house and he (not being sexist, just using the same gender as the babysitter) offered you some chips, but not just chips to eat while you hang out, but a bag of chips to take home and enjoy alone, you would say, "huh, that's kinda odd." And finally, he puts on music then says "I love this song." Well no shit you love it, you just picked it, why would you put on music that you don't like? Basically, he's showing her something personal to make them more familial.
And surprise, surprise, he makes a move. But after a little making out, Jenny stops the hookup, awkwardly trying to explain that it's not that she doesn't like him, but more that she's not really ready to keep going.
Around this time, Jenny suggests to Kelly that she try to write something quick and trashy, like 50 Shades of Grey-esque, just to allow her to work on her truly creative works. Although hesitant at first, Kelly warms to the idea and accepts Jenny's help in crafting the basic story line and how erotic novels work. This leads to an interesting friendship that emerges from this partnership, alleviating many of the worries that Kelly once had for Jenny. It also leads to a great scene between the two and Lena Dunham discussing the various ways they can vagina without saying the word "vagina." Lots of funny euphemisms.
While this friendship buds, Jenny's relationship with the babysitter also grows until Christmas eve, when the babysitter says he can't have sex with her tonight because he has to get ready for family Christmas the next day. She is devastated by this feeling of rejection and falls into another alcohol and drug fueled bender, leading to the whole family waking up to a smoke-filled house. Intoxicated, Jenny put a frozen pizza in the oven and then promptly passed out, leaving the the pizza to burn, hence the massive amounts of smoke.
The parents are pissed, but also thankful that their house wasn't actually on fire. Jenny disappears the next day, but Kelly eventually finds her and invites her back home. Roll credits.
Seriously, they give the implication of resolution and just ends. Drinking Buddies ends almost identically and is just as infuriating and unsatisfying. Maybe I'm just stuck in my ways, but show me that they are all better, give me the scene of them going home and opening presents and smiling, then you can cut to black. Seriously, two more minutes of film would have made the ending so much better.
I think there's an idea in movies that leaving the ending open to interpretation shows how deep and profound a movie can be, but this doesn't leave anything to be determined by the viewer, but they don't show you the ending either. It's annoying.
But other than the end, I did enjoy it. If nothing else, Melanie Lynskey has an amazing New Zealand accent and Anna Kendrick is adorable as always. The real star, though, is clearly Jude. He's so cute and was actually a pretty baller actor, all things considering. Also, stay through the credits (or fast forward if you're watching on Netflix) for another erotic novel brain-storming scene.
Rating on the feel-good-o-meter: 5 out of 10 hugs
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