Happy Christmas

So last night was movie night, and I decided to put on something mellow to get me to sleep. Well, Happy Christmas wasn’t all that happy after all. You’d think it was. Alright, so, how gorgeous is Melanie Lynskey? Answer, very.

And I swear, I’ve seen my fair share of cute babies in my, very very short life. But this one had to be the cutest. Not cute, as in, chubby cheeks and stuff, though he did have really chubby cheeks. This baby in the movie was just the happiest baby I have ever seen. Like really, HAPPIEST BABY EVER.

Okay, now the good stuff. So the film in a nutshell, was about a 27 year old, Jenny Spelling (Anna Kendrick), who moves to Chicago to live with her brother, Jeff (Joe Swanberg, who produced and directed this movie, FYI). Her first night in town, and she gets hammered at a party, causing trouble for her friend Carson (Lena Dunham) and Jeff, who had to drive out in the middle of the night to get her. As the movie progresses, we see Jenny meet a nice, young man and eventually has a relationship with him. Kelly (Melanie Lynskey), Jenny’s sister-in-law, did not quite take a liking to her in the beginning. This all changed when Jenny and Carson motivates her to take a break from being a housewife and continue the writing that she does so well, according to Jenny.

Personally, what I loved most about this movie was its normality. Like, I could see myself, being Jenny, running to a new place to get over something, or someone. I don’t have a brother, but I do have a sister. And I’d like to think that if I had to crash with her someday, she’d welcome me with open arms. This character (Jenny), slowly unfolds as we watch her in intimate settings with a man, and as we watch her talking about sexual encounters and fantasies. And as the three girls sit around the office, just brainstorming about a new book, I couldn’t help but find myself brainstorming with them. Like in my head, I was like, “Oh, that’s good. I didn’t think of that. How about…”

The film hit a new high, when Jenny almost sets the house on fire by leaving a pizza in the oven, and then falling asleep. The whole house was covered in thick smoke, and a furious Kelly storms into her room to wake her up. “Okay, your fucking sister is wasted.” she says to Jeff. I watched as Jeff reprimands her, shouting at her and just looking at her with disdain. At which Jenny was unapologetic in the moment, and said, “Dude, I burned food by accident. Like, it’s smoke, it’s fine. It’ll go away!” This sentence probably was it for Jeff, who told her to go back to sleep and called her a “Fucking selfish asshole” The song, all so retro plays in the background. The movie ends with Kelly eventually finding Jenny in the office, and asks her to go home and open the Christmas presents.
The ending was not spectacular, but rather, simple and normal, concluding it nicely for the film. I felt that it made a small statement on how the relationship between Jenny and Kelly have turned for the better, even during Jenny’s irresponsible shenanigans. As they sit down together and cook up interesting story lines and characters, the bad feeling just wasn’t existent, truly representative of the line, “Family is a gift that just keeps taking.”
This short post does no justice to the film, and it really is just one of those films that you have to watch it, to love it.

This was not quite the mellow movie as I had hoped it would be, it was so, so much better.