Another Happy Day (2011)

Please don't spend money on this.

It's complicated... I really like the directing, acting and writing but, there are issues with the way it's shot that I just can't deny. As much as I love the storytelling and the fantastic performance but, there are also certain scenes that didn't need to exist.

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

Lynn (Ellen Barkin) is coming back to the family home with his sons Elliot (Ezra Miller) and Ben (Daniel Yelsky) Her eldest son Dylan (Michael Nardelli) is getting married. Her daughter Alice (Kate Bosworth) is also coming. She's a fragile mess. Elliot is a cynical trouble maker who causes havoc. Lynn struggles with her parents (Ellen Burstyn, George Kennedy), her sisters (Siobhan Fallon, Diana Scarwid), her ex-husband (Thomas Haden Church) and his second wife Patty (Demi Moore).This is Sam Levinson's directorial debut and a writer as well. The cast list is very impressive. That may have something to do with the fact that Sam is the son of Barry Levinson. The great actors do some big performances here. Besides the big names, Ezra Miller also gives a good performance. However the whole movie is a chaotic mess of excessive drama with too many characters. More is not always better. The amateur directions never really allow the film to settle down and find a member of this family that we can root for.

What a surprise this was. Wasn't expecting much, due to mixed reception, but immediately I realized this is not only a drama, it's a dark comedy, and added that to the description here at IMDb. The title "Another happy day" is completely ironical, something I can see some reviewers of this really haven't grasped. There's simply no happiness here.It's a story about an extremely dysfunctional family, the Helmans (as in Hell mans) and it's tragic, this family event, which makes everything come to the surface. This is a comedy filled with black humor, mixed with life tragedies and lots if irony, which obviously many must have had problems in understanding. Maybe you've got to know a dysfunctional family to appreciate this film, or even be a part of it. The film is a gathering if most common problems which may occur in lives, though it might be a big much since everything herd is within a family.Drug abuse, depression, self destructive behavior, therapy, domestic violence, alcoholism, difficult parents-children relations, adultery, Alzheimer's, neighboring conflicts, family secrets, suicidal tendencies... It's all here. The film resembles a couple of other tragic comic family disasters I've seen, like "Festen" ("The Celebration"), August: Osage County" and "Cabin fever"/("Når nettene blir lange"), "In bed with Santa"/("Tomten er far til alla barnen") and even "Hotel New Hampshire" though I haven't seen the latter since it came out. Well I tend to enjoy these kinds of tragedy portrays, and this is up among them.Maybe not great to watch either, if you're right in a family crises, if you don't then find this comforting. Someone always got it worse. Anyway, this is beautifully acted, not only by Ellen Barkin, which is perfect in a tragedy like this, but by the whole ensemble. I simply wax blown away by Ezra Miller and Kate Bosworth, Ellen Burstyn is as always great. I completely enjoyed the play with differences in a big family.The film is greatly summed up in the son Elliot asking the bartender to give him three scotch whiskeys. The bartender asks "How old are you?" before getting this answer: -I'm 17. This is my family, and this is Hell! The bartender serving the three drinks without any hesitation.Lovely dark comedy!

I'm not one for movies that put a damper on your mood and opens up your eyes to the fact that there are dysfunctional families out there. (I'm an optimist.) But, with this movie, I didn't want it to end! I found each character rich and they all pull you right in. Even with the minor roles you can really see how each character fits into the whole picture. The performances in this movie played with my heartstrings. It was a perfect balance of sympathy and hate. I felt that each actor killed their performances. I mean that in a good way! Its a respectable cast. I'm not sure why it got such a low rating. A dysfunctional family isn't something new in the movie industry, but with this plot it brings up a lot of questions (as well as answers, if you truly take in what the characters actions) as to why certain things turn out the way they do in families such as this. I highly recommend this to anyone who wants to see top-notch acting and also for those who enjoy movies that they can discuss afterwards!

I find it odd that nobody has mentioned how hilariously funny this movie is. I also find it odd how many people claim this is somehow unrealistic for the sheer amount of problems this family has. Personally this seemed like exactly the family I was raised in. An extended family of, on the surface, squeaky clean socialites and all American families, while my mother was the person who had a history of therapy and being abused, and my siblings and I all had a number of mental health issues, which ended up causing every gathering to feel like us vs them where we seemed to be dismissed as the broken trouble makers who were too uppity and made too many ripples rather than pretend everything was fine and dandy when daddy broke mommy's nose etc. I loved this movie and was amazed by how real it felt and how funny it was at the same time as being disturbing and full of neurosis. I loved the dancing at the wedding, that's how I feel at those places. It's so weird to see it all without the music and with all the issues bubbling beneath the surface.