Happy Christmas

I don't know what to think about this movie. The first impression was that it was a home movie because of the picture quality (16mm), lack of lighting, shaky shooting and strange camera movements.

Anna Kendrick was showing her white teeth all the time when smiling thousand times exactly same manner which was odd. Perhaps she had new teeth and wanted to show them. These overly white and too perfect teeth look funny here in Europe because they don't look natural.

And why an Earth was this called Happy Christmas? I wanted to give only one star of ten just to warn people if they think that this was some kind of Xmas-movie and more over a happy one. Well. The kid was nice and that's why I watched the movie to the end.

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.

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.

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.

I only gave it 2 stars instead of NONE because that baby was cute. That is all.