7 minute read
Films
Happiest Season – 3 Stars
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A ‘woke’ Christmas classic.
ABBY (Kristen Stewart) hasn’t liked Christmas since her parents died one Christmas past. Yet, as her girlfriend Harper (Mackenzie Davis) loves the holiday, she tries to make it special – even going so far as to buy a ring and planning to propose over the holiday break.
When Harper invites Abby to her family Christmas, Abby sees her opportunity – she’ll ask Harper’s dad for his blessing and propose Christmas morning.
When she gets there, though, she is horrifi ed to discover that Harper isn’t out to her parents, and they don’t know about Abby.
Abby has to navigate the waters of a domineering mother (Mary Steenburgen), a mayoral candidate father (Victor Garber), an overbearing sister (Mary Holland), and another cruel one (Alison Brie).
As Harper struggles with her family’s expectation, and Abby confi des her fears and concerns in her best friend John (Dan Levy), they grow further apart. Will the approaching Christmas Day push them irrevocably apart, or bring them closer together?
Directed by Clea DuVall, Happiest Season is a bastion of cultural sensitivity in this day and age, adeptly navigating the waters of political correctness to bring a new lens to the generations old tradition of Christmas movies.
It’s also a prett y funny rom-com. Dan Levy in particular strikes a hilarious tone, crushing the comedic perspective of this fi lm and in many ways making up for a lack of that acerbic wit from the rest of the cast.
Th at being said, the rest of the cast is uniformly good. Stewart brings an emotional sensitivity to the role that is commendable, belying her indie bona fi des in this decidedly mainstream yuletide fi lm. Aubrey Plaza also pops up in a much diff erent role than we have seen her before, eschewing her sarcastic demeanour for a more serious, romantic tone.
Th e story is fairly standard Christmas fare; a mix of romantic highs and lows, and Christmas-related hijinks. All of the seasonal beats are hit – from the snow covered big American house, to the street of Christmas lights, gingerbread men and eggnog.
Th e interesting thing is they are all done fairly well too – Happiest Season echoes the classic Christmas tropes, while also layering a modern relationship and the associated struggles on top.
Issues arise, however, when interrogating the characters on display here, because the fact is that with a cast this big, no one really gets too fl eshed out.
As much as this is a subversion of the genre, the characters are fairly standard cookie-cutt ers. Th ey also in some cases have litt le agency.
We’re asked to root for Abby and Harper’s relationship, but Abby is constantly downtrodden by Harper and her family, to the point that you want them to break up.
While DuVall does fl ip the script at the end, it’s a hollow win. We’ve spent so long with this couple and having Harper lie to and abuse Abby, and so litt le time with them as a functioning one, with so litt le character work or backstory, that for it to succeed feels a litt le like we are being cheated.
In the end, this is a factor of the combined deeply thought out dramatic element and the heart-of-gold saccharinity of the story. We can’t have too complex an ending (it is a family Christmas movie aft er all), so instead we’re left with a hollow one.
Reviews by Jacob Richardson Creative Director | Film Focus www.filmfocusau.com
Let Him Go – 4 Stars A chemistry-laden melting pot of drama, romance and loss.
GEIRGE Blackledge (Kevin Costner) and his wife Margaret (Diane Lane) grieve the loss of their only son, whose tumble off a horse left his wife Lorna (Kayli Carter) a widow with a young boy.
She marries again, to a young man named Donnie Weboy (Will Britt ain), who soon spirits her and the boy away from George and Margaret and their ranch in Montana, to live with his mother Blanche (Lesley Manville) in North Dakota.
Shocked at the sudden departure, and worried about Donnie’s nature, George and Margaret road trip to North Dakota, only to have their worst fears confi rmed – Donnie and the rest of the Weboy family are abusive and feared, not just by Lorna but also by the town, and they set about trying to get their grandson back.
Let Him Go is hard to pigeonhole, because it does so many things well – a tense drama, a believable romance, a treatise on dealing with grief. Without a shadow of a doubt though, everyone can agree that Let Him Go is gripping cinema.
Director Th omas Bezucha isn’t known for his dramatic work, having previously directed Monte Carlo and Th e Family Stone, both decidedly diff erent fare to what’s on off er here.
But he doesn’t pull any punches with this movie, and his penchant for romance and melodrama blend well with the sinister and bleak tone of the movie’s more deranged elements.
Th ere are defi nite tonal issues here, indeed some that will make you laugh (the hard switch from Montana countryside to the ‘evils’ of North Dakota being one where the fi lm magic at work to create a visible diff erence overtakes any eff ective use of the sequence).
Bezucha never lets these get out of hand though, and despite the movie juggling so many tonal shift s, it never fails the balancing act.
One of the most impressive feats of Let Him Go is the chemistry of its two leads. Costner and Lane are utt erly believable as an aged couple who are deeply in tune with one another’s idiosyncrasies.
Lane’s Margaret Blackledge is a wild stallion, who will fi ght tooth and nail to get what she wants. Costner’s George Blackledge is a quiet, imposing, retired sheriff , who fully understands his wife’s strength and will, and supports her even in this crazy endeavour.
Together, they form a formidable team, and whether it’s the quiet looks between them in a tense situation in the Weboy’s home, or the loving ones across a steak dinner as they reminisce on their life together, they bring a level of prestige and confi dence to their performances that sucks you in.
Th at’s a good thing, because the dialogue in Let Him Go oft en borders on unbelievability and cliche. Too oft en can you predict what’s going to come out of the mouths of these characters; too oft en are you groaning at a line you’ve heard in a million movies before. For a fi lm that is hard to pin down in terms of tone, plot and character development, it’s an immense shame that the dialogue just doesn’t stack up.
Th e supporting cast is an interesting choice too. Lesley Manville is great as the domineering matriarch, but her reveal is so over the top that you almost think the part was writt en for a bigger A-lister.
Jeff rey Donovan as another of the Weboy clan is tremendous, weird and wonderful (mimicking his impressive turns in a string of recent roles), but the rest of the Weboy clan barely make an impact – almost as if they spent all of their budget on Costner and Lane, and had to aim a bit lower for the rest.
It’s a mystifying fi lm – a series of odd, strange choices. A mix of tones that doesn’t quite make sense. A cohort of actors of
distinctly varying calibre. A plot that shocks and surprises, and dialogue that distinctly doesn’t.
Yet somehow it all works. It’s not a mustsee fi lm, nor a widespread cultural phenomenon, but it is undeniably gripping cinema.
Reviews by Jacob Richardson Creative Director | Film Focus www.filmfocusau.com
