Florin Gaidaenco This review can't contains spoiler because is nothing to be spoiled in this movie.I don't necessarily dislike this kind of movie, because life itself can be boring and pointless, but when you do that, at least try to create strong characters, thrilling and interesting dialogues. From time to time we need a pointless slow pace movie about the recklessness of life and art, but here these things come from poor directing, lack of inspiration, dull camera work and bad acting. When an artist improvises the secret is to not let the audience to feel his struggle , otherwise is like feeling your dentist not knowing what he is doing to your teeth. So in this movie we have a director (played by the real director of this movie, who acts like a carpenter) and his wife, she is writer (but acts like a '50 suburb housewife). Those two artists look like an amish family giving moral lessons to a blacksheep.The bkacksheep si Anne Kendrick who acts like a disoriented teenager, having recreational drugs. Very evil indeed....the amish family must save her soul. At some point, the blacksheep commits the ultimate act of irresponsibility, she forgots a pizza in the owen, so the entire house is full of smoke. The carpenter-director and the housewife-writer are shocked, yelling at blacksheep, blaming for her behavior. The blacksheep disappears just on Christmas Eve.She will be found by the housewife-writer and the film ends in a stupid state of happiness.During the movie the housewife-writer try to writes an erotic novel with the blacksheep and another girl. Their storm-braining session are full of stupid dialogues about how to name genitals or intercourse in a mellow way. It seems in this movie everybody is waiting for inspiration.....the characters, the crew, the cast

KSquared57-87-867139 It was shockingly awful. Anna Kendrick plays a character that has literally no good qualities about her. I'd say it's a nod to how well Kendrick can play an unlikable character, but it's just so infuriating to watch this movie. The irony in the title is really obvious, given this movie is depressing and it pertains to Christmas for about 15 seconds before the movie ends. It's just a movie that shouldn't have been made. No one learns anything, nothing is gained or lost in the end, it's just the story of a horrible person being horrible to the last person that can tolerate her.....and then it ends. 1/10, will unplug the TV if it means saving someone from watching this awful awful movie.

JRConsidine Joe Swanberg was on the precipice of becoming a recognized force in the indie film universe. He has plugged away for years making one film after another. They have grown from the "has promise" stage to the "this is pretty good" level. Drinking Buddies looked like he had found his footing and was going to build upon this success. It did not hurt Joe that his former muse, Greta Gerwig was nominated for a Golden Globe with "Frances Ha". Happy Christmas is blessed with a July release so that the world may not see it on the shelves in December 2014. This one needs to go straight to the cardboard bin in the Supermarket. It felt as if some devious film production executive found a movie that Joe made in college with his friend Anna and released it to cash in on their celebrity. Anna Kendrick ... how could she have put her name on this? The "lobby poster" looks like the graphic artist mated her with Mister Ed. She is not propped up by George Clooney and Vera Farmiga. Swanberg rolled back to the days when the hand-held camera shook and the movie was under lit since they could not open up the aperture anymore because the camera was already shaking. The audio supervisor was somebody's cousin and the budget could not afford the good microphones so they bought the East German surplus. Pray this will not be passed off as an artistic technique of the director. The unforgivable sin was when they used a scene where Kendrick forgets her line for a moment and the audience watches in bewilderment as she catches herself and continues. The cry of "We'll fix it in post" may have been abandoned. Neither Swanberg nor Kendrick can be so secure in their careers that they can afford to throw a wrench in the works. The big difference between those films from college and today is that the viewer is paying full price plus the cost of popcorn and soda to see a movie that is fit to be viewed while sitting on a metal folding chair.

Argemaluco One of my favorite films from last year was Drinking Buddies, which proved director and screenwriter Joe Swanberg's talent to transcend the "mumblecore" genre through a realistic and universal story which reached levels of emotional honesty we rarely find in dramas of a higher profile. His most recent film, Happy Christmas, is another "slice of life" which is simple on its shape but complex on its depth, thanks to the mutable dynamics between the main characters and the brilliant performances which reach that magic balance between improvisation and structure that immediately captures us into their experiences, and gradually invites us to discover the deepness hidden by their frivolous lives. Swanberg establishes tense and filled with emotion situations which he abandons before reaching the "dramatic climax" which seemed unavoidable. As a consequence, the scene provokes the desired impact, and at the same time, keeps a subtleness and spontaneity which might have been sacrificed in a more conventional film, where the climax of the scene is considered an end in itself, instead of working as one more step in the evolution of the characters. That's a risky strategy which couldn't be faced by any actor, but fortunately, Anna Kendrick, Lena Dunham and the great Melanie Lynskey make a perfect work, and they bring weight to those prosaic moments which should be irrelevant, but which end up revealing themselves as keys in their characters' humanity. On the negative side, Happy Christmas didn't leave me totally satisfied, and I liked it much less than Drinking Buddies. As I said, Swanberg's strategy is omitting stuff, but sometimes, he omits too much, including a concrete and cathartic ending which would have validated all the family tension we had been witnessing. The ambiguity of a sudden ending can work when it comes at the appropriate time; but in the case of Happy Christmas, it feels like an arbitrary interruption; an escape, instead of a planned resolution. I'm not asking for a "big gesture" or a forced happy ending to close the movie, but I definitely feel that Swanberg could have found a better moment to abandon the characters, without leaving us the impression that the memory card of the digital camera was filled and he said: "Well, let's leave it there. Good job, team!". That ending left me with quite a bitter taste, and it's the main reason why I wasn't left completely satisfied by this film. Nevertheless, that doesn't remove the movie's pros, and I can give it a moderate recommendation mainly because of its sober narrative and excellent performances. However, I think Drinking Buddies is a much better option than Happy Christmas; it also ends abruptly, but at least we know where the characters are heading, and that information is enough for us to tie the loose ends and to feel satisfied.