I can only suppose that writer/director Sam Levinson (some of director Barry) chose the title for his debut feature movie with a real sense of irony. He does such a good job convincing us that the embittered family in thecentre of this drama has never had a single happy day, let alone another one!
Mr. Levinson shows us how life in a wealthy extended family in Annapolis who have nervously congregated together for a wedding on their estate is fraught with impending disaster. Lynn, the mother of the groom, is on edge as Paul, her ex-husband and his brassy second wife have brought up her eldest son without involving her at all. Lynn’s other three children are a total mess. Alice has her own demons and is dealing with them by frequently slashing herself with knives; Elliot at 17 has already been in and out of rehab four times and still drinks heavily and takes and drugs he can lay his hands on and is verbally and physically abusive to his mother, and Ben the youngest has Asperger’s and insists on intrusively filming everything with his video.
Lynn hasn’t spoken to Paul for years and is still raging with pent up anger on her unresolved issues. Her mother, the family matriarch, deeply resents her daughter’s need to publicly deal with her problems and actually prefers her ex son in-law and his controlling loud-mouthed wife who has hijacked all the wedding arrangements. And if that is not bad enough, Lynn’s two sisters, always seen with full cocktail glasses in their hands, publicly deride her for trying to deal with her issues.
The story which won a Sundance Screenwriting Award is not really about the wedding at all, as that is just the set up for a series of verbal histrionics when family member fights family member, and in which no-one ever really wins.
It may not be happy, but it is neither depressing too. Just an emotional roller coaster that really keeps you knotted up anxiously worrying how it is all going to turn out in the end. It works as well as it does because Mr Levinson got himself a first class cast together that made the whole thing sing. Not one but two Ellens: the wonderful Ms. Burstyn as the formidable matriarch, pitched up against Ms. Barkin as her weepy over-wrought daughter Lynn. Then add Thomas Haden Church and Demi Moore as Paul as his wife, George Kennedy as the patriarch, Kate Bosworth as troubled Alice, and Ezra Miller as stroppy Elliot. Mr. Miller made this movie before his other big role in 2011 as Kevin in ‘We Need To Talk About Kevin’ and is a superbly gifted young actor who looks like he is going to be a major star just based on these two performances alone.
‘Another Happy Day’ will keep you engaged to the very end, and will also make you appreciate that your own family are not that bad after all. Or maybe they are!
