Anna Kendrick exudes adorable. Happy Christmas allows Kendrick to take her persona and twist it into a basket case recovering from a breakup. Joe Swanberg and his mumblecore direction uses Kendrick’s mannerisms against her to make her a very unlikable character. However, Happy Christmas pivots halfway through to allow the story to give Kendrick’s character a potential redeeming arc, though not justifying how stunted the character is. The movie also boasts a cute bonding story and one of the cutest babies on screen in some time.
It’s nearing Christmastime for new parents for Jeff (Joe Swanberg, pulling triple duty as Writer/Director and lead) and Kelly (Melanie Lynskey), and their life gets a jolt from the arrival of Jeff’s sister Jenny (Kendrick). Jenny has just broken up with her boyfriend, and uses this move back to Chicago to go crazy. She parties with her friend Carson (Lena Dunham) and flirts heavily with the family babysitter Kevin (Mark Webber). Kelly is justifiably worried about here baby around Jenny, however, she approached Jenny about her past and dreams that Jenny connects with, leading to unexpected bonding between the sisters in law.
Mumblecore is an erudite description of what Joe Swanberg does when he directs. If you really think about it, conversations in the movies rarely feel real and organic. Swanberg attempts to put the reality back into a movie, using lots of improvisation to create an honest interaction. Sometimes this works to great effect: there’s a scene where Jeff is supposed to scold Jenny, and he just waits it out without saying anything and eating a piece of candy. That scene sounds boring, but played out on screen it is hilarious. Kelly is a writer, and watching her discuss her erotic book ideas with Jenny and Carson doesn’t ever feel scripted: there are so many likes and soft-spoken weirdness that feel like people trying to be guarded talking about a touchy subject, just like how people in the real world speak. Every so often, the scenes will drag long trying to emphasize a point that inhibit the movie’s momentum, but the honesty of the dialogue trumps these little mistakes every time.
Swanberg also subverts expectations very well in Happy Christmas. Kelly is set up to be the standard shrew wife movie character, complaining about Jenny’s rampaging lifestyle. Instead, we get to see her try to connect with her sister in law, by relating over frustration over life stagnation. It is a surprising move, but it pays dividends for the third act: Jenny and Kelly’s relationship is less about control and more about child safety and growing up. Jeff right away admits that he wants his wife to be more fulfilled when she approaches him about more book writing. There’s no fight, just a discussion about how to make it happen. It’s nice to see a couple with love present, and trying really hard to make each other fulfilled. Jenny is a child at times, but there is care and empathy inside of her, seen by her brother and sister in law. Happy Christmas could easily vilify any of these people, and instead it takes the optimistic route (and probably more realistic) of trying to get these people to work through their differences.
The three leads are really good. Swanberg himself is fine, being a nice guy comes naturally to him since he became a dad. He has turned Anna Kendrick into his muse: Kendrick gets to play a more unlikable character here, using her cuteness as a less than admirable trait. She makes the audience rethink preconceptions of her as she uses her personality to justify stupid actions. However, she makes the audience root for her with the more time she spends with Melanie Lynskey. Lynskey is the winner here: she takes a thankless part and breathes humanity and longing into it. I was put off by her immediately, and by the end of Happy Christmas she easily became the most interesting character. Lena Dunham and Mark Webber give solid support, but the big winner is Jude Swanberg, Joe’s son, who beats Kendrick in the cuteness department. Any scene with that baby kills comically and emotionally.
Happy Christmas tries to capture what it is like to raise a family in Chicago while taking care of an underdeveloped family member. The party scenes are spot on, the relationships reek of personal life experience, and the characters are sweet and flawed. Swanberg, a Chicago native, always finds interesting ways to incorporate the city into his movies, and if you are very interested into how people party socially in apartments here, please see Happy Christmas.