Commercial prospects are solid within the dramatic arena, though
ad campaigns leaning too hard on the comic element could lead to
disappointed audiences.
First-timer Sam Levinson proves to be a
confident and unshowy director, one fortunate to have a skillful cast
investing its all in his screenplay. Though some of the movie's
performances flirt with caricature (Siobhan Fallon's loud-mouthed aunt,
Demi Moore as a brash and overtly sexual second wife), the movie has a
center of gravity just strong enough to contain them. Watch Another Happy Day Movie 2011 Online Ellen
Barkin plays Lynn, a mother who has made her share of missteps but
wasn't dealt a great hand to begin with. Lynn comes very close to
collapse (and gets in one actual catfight) while trying to wrangle two
troubled sons and a disturbed daughter through an already stressful
family event -- her third son, raised by Lynn's estranged husband
(Thomas Haden Church, paired with Moore), is getting married at Lynn's
parents' Anapolis home. It's a scene promising fraught reunions and
grudge-driven friction, particularly between the two women who call the
groom "son."
Barkin, who produced the film, has secured for
herself a full-tilt role requiring a thousand shades of vulnerable
agitation and angry desperation; she's made for the part, and manages to
elicit both disapproval and sympathy from the viewer, sometimes
simultaneously. But the actress has competition in Ezra Miller, who as
Lynn's drug-abusing, emotionally damaged middle son is the movie's
sardonic, damaged soul.
The picture is littered with supporting
turns that leave their mark, particularly that of Ellen Burstyn, who as
Barkin's mother, Doris, typifies the kind of moral ambiguities
Levinson's script trades in: When Doris criticizes Lynn's need to make a
big deal of every emotional obstacle, she isn't wrong. But the kind of
stuff Lynn faces -- an ex who abused her and is still treated sweetly by
her mother, a self-harming daughter about to have to encounter him
after six years of fearful distance, a son who curses at her and
sabotages every attempt at normalcy -- is enough to make anyone crack.
The
angsty-wedding film may be its own genre now, and our overfamiliarity
with its building blocks make one or two sequences here, especially the
post-nuptials toasts and drunken dance-floor action, feel somewhat
longer than necessary. But when ante-upping mishaps interrupt the party,
Levinson is firmly back in control -- playing both grief and relief
with a similar restraint, and refusing to milk the action for the cheap
catharsis typically seen in these we're-all-messed-up-together affairs. Watch Another Happy Day Movie 2011 Online Venue: Sundance Film Festival, U.S. Dramatic Competition Production company: Mandalay Vision Cast: Ellen Barkin, Ezra Miller, Kate Bosworth, Demi Moore, Thomas Haden Church, George Kennedy, Ellen Burstyn, Michael Nardelli Director-screenwriter: Sam Levinson Producers:
Ellen Barkin, Pamela Lynn Fielder, Peter Guber, Johnny Lin, Michael
Nardelli, Salli Newman, Celine Rattray, Todd Traina Executive producers: Bill Brady, William T. Conway, Cynthia Coury, Peter Crane, Caroline Kaplan, Elana Krausz, Sean McEwen Director of photography: Ivan Strasburg Production designer: Michael Grasley Music: Olafur Arnalds Costume designer: Stacey Battat Editor: Ray Hubley Sales: CAA No rating, 118 minutes
