Review of Happy Christmas (2014) by Kenneth L — 22 Mar 2015

This movie is to the low-budget, semi-improvised American indie drama what a movie like The Transporter is to action movies: it efficiently does exactly what you expect it to, no more and no less. This is the first film I've seen by Joe Swanberg, who I know has been making little indie films for years.

I don't have any opinion on his larger body of work, but in this case, I thought the movie was just fine, and not really anything more than that. I would recommend it if you like this sort of movie, especially for the performances - Anna Kendrick is gorgeous and charming as ever, and Melanie Lynskey (who's great on the HBO show Togetherness) is quite good.

Lena Dunham is in a few scenes, and while it's interesting to see her outside the context of her own work on Girls, I couldn't help but think about how much better her own work is than Swanberg's.

It's sometimes enough to just spend some time around good actors; but in this case, it really does not add up to much more than that. Kendrick, Lynskey, and Dunham have all been in way better things.

I enjoyed the movie, but ultimately, it doesn't really do anything to distinguish itself from other low-key indie dramas.