Happy Christmas

Joe Swanberg who wrote, directed and played one of the leading roles in this his latest film is known for his improvisational independent films. Although I liked, as other reviewers have noted his recent movie "Drinking Buddies", I felt this film's improvisations failed in that the dialogue was too stilted, awkward, and filled with what appeared to be inside jokes that the cast would laugh at, ignoring basically the viewers that were watching. Thus the whole thing just got more and more annoying for me as it progressed.

The plot centers on the loving couple of Kelly (Melanie Lynskey) and Jeff Spelling (Swanberg) and their adorable son Jude welcoming to their home, in Chicago around Christmas time, Jeff's sister Jenny (Anna Kendrick), after she just broke up with her boyfriend. Once Jenny enters the scene, they'll be a lot of scenes involving pot smoking, drinking, sex, and explicit sex talk. They'll be other plot elements involving Jenny's irresponsibility and her attempts along with her friend Carson (Lena Dunham) to convince Kelly to devote more time to her writing and to get help with the raising of her son.

All in all, as mentioned, I just felt the improvisational approach here just didn't work, and the movie ended up having little entertainment value for me.

In Happy Christmas Anna Kendrick plays Jenny a young twenty something who comes to stay with her brother for the holidays after a break up. The director Joe Swanberg casts himself as her brother Jeff. His wife Kelly (Melanie Lynskey) is reluctant to have Jenny stay with them and their infant son, knowing her "wild" behavior. Her first night there Jenny goes to a party with her friend Carson (Lena Dunham) and gets hammered drunk. So much to where she needs to be picked up and is unable to babysit like she promised the following day. Stepping in for the babysitting we meet Kevin, (Mark Webber) your friendly neighborhood babysitter, musician and small time pot dealer. Jenny and Kevin soon spark up a romance. Jenny then tries to repair her earlier wrongs with her sister in law, Kelly by helping her get back into writing and shaking off the doldrums of being a stay at home mom. Together with her friend Cason, the three girls try to collaborate on a trashy romance novel.

I liked Drinking Buddies, the director Joe Swanberg's previous film. If anything it was fun to see a little behind the scenes of a craft beer business and see Ron Livingston in an indie film. Happy Christmas is a disappointing follow up. The title is incidental, this is not a Christmas movie. Unless you like to watch unfunny, non-irreverent holiday family dysfunction. The film is very low budget, think early 90's independent films. Grainy film stock and a ton of unfunny, what seems like ad-libbed dialog. The director takes to the old indie film look like a hipster listening to vinyl records. Just to be pretentious. I appreciate independent film as much as the next guy, this just doesn't have anything to be enthusiastic about. Lena Dunham tries to add her own bit of irreverence to this movie. But as each disappointingly unfunny new season of HBO's Girls comes out, I am becoming increasingly aware that it was Judd Apatow's influence in season one that gave it good, not Lena. If you are fan crushing on Anna Kendrick or you are looking for a new Christmas classic, don't bother. Anna Kendrick's usual adorable charming spark is dulled to a faint glimmer like that of a tiny Christmas tree light on the saddest of Charlie Brown trees. Even for the minimal effort this film takes to watch on Netflix it isn't worth the time.

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OK it's mumblecore. You knew that before you hit the pay button. What did you expect? There is no script. It is actors improvising trying to be natural and create real drama out of pure inspiration. It's an interesting idea at least, especially for actors I imagine. You are not going to get bloody Shakespeare are you. But what you do get is a real sense of being present in the lives of the people involved. I feel like I know Joe Swanberg, or the gorgeous wife, or Lena Dunham... but most of all, and praise be to Jesus, it's like I know Anna Kendrick. She gives a superb performance of a very funny dysfunctional character with some very funny scenes and for me it was worth it just to watch her. The baby is hilarious too. It's about as entertaining as watching a real family fight going on if you are just a spectator. But hey, sometimes that is a lot of fun.

There was really no point to this movie. I have definitely seen worse but I wouldn't ever recommend this to someone.

This is a film I would like to forget, a complete waste of time. The only entertainment I found in this came from watching the performance of the little boy, Jude Swanberg, who was very cute and amusing.

Also, while I was trying to keep track of the number of times Lena Dunham was using the word "like", Anna Kendrick started trying to outdo her. I just stopped counting. I was like, is she like making like fun of her like, or like just like unconsciously like copying her like way of like talking?

I saw an old interview with Lena Dunham and she really did talk that way all the time.

I've just checked out a more recent interview, and she seems cured now, thank goodness.