And we are back for post-lockdown movie reviews v2. This time the review was in the new Boutique section of the Newmarket 277 Event cinema. It was really lovely, and the spread that was put on was great as I had just come from the gym. This has nothing to do with the movie; I just like getting free food.
In Venice, because there is essentially no land and everything is floating, all of the buildings move and shift. The shaky ground requires certain adaptations in the building process to make sure they live up to a standard. Venice was a hub for trade and culture and so the standards of what the buildings should look like were very high: for the Venetians, appearance mattered. One of the flow-on effects of this is that many buildings had ostentatious facades created.
I did not expect much when I was asked to review Happiest Season (Dir: Clea DuVall). It looked like a run-of-the-mill, overly saccharine Christmas Movie. It has a very talented cast with Kristen Stewart playing Abby, invited to her girlfriend Harper’s (Mackenzie Davis) family’s house for Christmas. On the drive to Harper’s house, Harper reveals that she hasn’t come out to her parents yet and that they are going to have to tell everyone that Abby is just her flatmate.
It seems like a pretty straightforward setup, a little bit of a fish-out-of-water situation where Abby has to navigate a new family dynamic and the family all learn something about themselves. It plays like that, but with a bit of a twist.
The cast keeps getting better with Daniel Levy playing Abby’s best friend John who brings a lot of comic relief but also some poignant moments, and Mary Holland (one of the writers) playing Harper’s sister Jane. There is Victor Garber as Ted, Harper’s Father, and Mary Steenburgen as Tipper, Harper’s Mother, Alison Brie as another sister, Sloane, and as Aubrey Plaza playing Harper’s ex Riley.
The film quickly gets into some deeper and more profound exploration of families and the expectations they put on those within the family structure. Harper’s father was running for political office so every element of his life is run to be perceived from a certain way. This has caused his daughters to all act in a certain way to get his approval rather than be themselves.
This was all played for laughs at the start but as the film progresses, you see that shaky foundation creating an impossible task for the facade of their lives to remain in place. There were some brutal moments of characters doing horrible things to maintain their place in the social hierarchy.
I went into this film thinking it would be a lighthearted romp but it turned out to be a much deeper – sometimes sinister- and ultimately more rewarding film that I imagined. Well worth a view – even though I think it’s still too early for all these Christmas shenanigans.
By Luke McMeeken-Ruscoe
1 December 2020