Review of Happy Christmas (2014) by Ben R — 13 Dec 2014

I've read quite a lot of negative reception about this movie, and you can tell from the audience score that it's not exactly universally loved. Maybe I'm just really into Swanberg's schtick, but I kind of loved it.

I think the main reason I liked it so much was that it just felt so real. There's just an effortless quality about it, and even though the plot is so low-key, everything seemed to have weight. The movie isn't really comedic or anything - there are no huge, gut-busting laughs - but I found myself laughing a lot of the time because the comedic moments were true to life. Usually, when you watch a comedy, you have a much higher standard for the jokes, because you're listening to comedy gods, not just friends telling jokes. But I laughed a lot during this movie because it felt like Anna Kendrick, Melanie Lynskey, and Joe Swanberg WERE friends telling jokes.

There are a lot of scenes I just really enjoyed, like any scene with Jenny and Kelly planning the erotica novel. I also loved the dynamic of the scene with Jenny, Kelly, and Carson having a drink together, as Kelly began to reveal her insecurities and slight resentment of her husband. I think, when a lot of people watch a low-key movie like this, they get the idea that Joe Swanberg is really pretentious, thinking there's meaning where there really isn't. But I got this rare moment of pure enjoyment, just watching these subtle dynamics at play, and even if some people might think the scenes with the erotica novel are too cutesy, they totally worked for me. I don't know really what else to say about that. There are things that some people hated, but I just never got that feel. Swanberg's movies have always (I've only seen this and Drinking Buddies) seemed genuine in their realism, really down-to-earth, not pathetically minimalist.

Another big complaint I saw was that the movie just kind of ends. Yeah, it does, but...again, that was fine with me. Maybe it's because I went into the movie knowing kind of what it would be like, but I didn't expect some big, shattering conclusion; from the get go I got the feel that the movie was just a small slice of these characters' lives, not a huge dramatic piece. I gotta watch more of Swanberg's stuff, because each time I watch one, I've really settled into the slow pace and enjoyed them.