jimelas-835-982916 I don't know if this was supposed to be art or just some kind of lets just throw it out there and see where it goes because we have money and time to burn. It was a pointless drama I kept waiting for the epiphany and it never came. If you want to get high and have something on in the background than sure turn this on but it's not even interesting. There is no value in this picture and I can usually find something good in the smallest places. This was just white people being white. I mean there is no other way to describe it except that. The best character in the whole movie was the baby. I don't have anything else to say about this movie except don't watch it.

Tony Heck "Let her prove to us that that was a one time thing." Jenny (Kendrick) has just gone through a bad breakup and decides to move in with her brother and his wife Kelly (Lynskey). Almost instantly she causes stress and is not the ideal house guest. Little by little she starts to calm down and even gets Kelly writing again. Jenny continues to struggle with her personal life and it continues to affect everyone around her. After watching and really liking Drinking Buddies I was looking forward to watching this. This movie had a very similar feel to that one as it feels like the dialog was pretty much made up on the spot. Drinking Buddies had something about it that made you really care for the characters and root for them. One of the problems with this movie is that everyone felt flat and I found it hard to make a connection with any of the characters. I'm not saying that this is a bad movie because it was OK but it really seemed to go nowhere. Overall, nothing terrible but not exciting or gripping at all. A disappointment after Drinking Buddies. I give it a B-

aaskillz69 "Mr. Pants is here, Mr. Pants would disapprove."-JennyOkay i'm not going to lie and pretend that i was very excited to see this movie, i mean it got some decent buzz back in the beginning of the year at the "Sundance Film Festival" but after that i was basically forgotten. This is from the same guy who directed last year's Drinking Buddies, a pretty good movie that's probably regarded as one of 2013's best independent films. Though Swanberg's(the director) last picture was surprisingly decent as i said i still just couldn't be bumped to see this one even though it had decent critic love, i mean it's hard to get excited for something that has no publicity and the marketing that it has is trash, i mean that has to be one of the worst looking posters i have seen and the sappy name Happy Christmas didn't help either.Happy Christmas is Directed by Joe Swanberg and it stars Anna Kendrick, Melanie Lynskey, Mark Webber, Lena Dunham and Joe Swanberg. "Irresponsible 20-something Jenny arrives in Chicago to live with her older brother Jeff, a young film-maker living a happy existence with his novelist wife Kelly and their two-year-old son. Jenny's arrival shakes up their quiet domesticity as she and her friend Carson instigate an evolution in Kelly's life and career. Meanwhile, Jenny strikes up a rocky relationship with the family's baby sitter- cum- pot dealer."Well thankfully Happy Christmas is not as terrible or out of place as it's marketing, Jesus that poster is just bad, but it's still far from being anything great, this is one of those pictures that's a good time but ultimately is unmemorable and i will have forgotten this one by the end of the week(probably being a little bit generous).Drinking Buddies was one of last year's most talked about independent films, it was up there with something like Frances Ha in terms of talk but the fact is that i now realize that after having been released for over 90 days the movie only grossed a disgustingly low 343.000. dollars. An independent picture that was such a success critically and talked about only earned that! That's explains the why Joe Swanberg, wasn't able to move to something bigger because this film's budget has to be much lower than his previous work. The budget must have been really but really small, you can see that by it's run-time and by it's technical quality that's rather unimpressive.But for such a small budgeted, little and limited picture Joe Swanberg is still able to offer it's audience something that's far from being terrible, by all means, Happy Christmas is never dramatically powerful and to say the truth there are not a lot of legitimate laughs in here but it's a film that's always able to be entertaining and it manages to keep a smile on our faces for the grand majority of it's run-time.Happy Christmas is a movie that ultimately never surprises it's audience and it never really stands out but it also doesn't let you down. Again it's not ever that funny but it's always at least amusing, the performers here are lovable and real and that's probably the film's biggest stand out, the fact that it manages to sell these characters as real people, and because they are real people, we oddly seem to relate to them and be engaged by their stories and about what they have to say, though they at times seem short on things that they have to say.Again you wont find anything memorable nor one of the year's best pictures in this movie, but Happy Christmas is certainly an entertaining and amusing enough of a watch, you wont regret if you see it i think, it's a movie that's easy to follow during it's short 80 minutes run-time but unfortunately also easy to forget.Rating.C

Amari-Sali Not since Drinking Buddies have I seen an Anna Kendrick film and this saddens me in such a way. For, while she may not have the profile of some of her contemporaries like Emma Stone or Jennifer Lawrence, just she has carved herself a nice niche in the film industry. Mostly with her being in quality indie films, or just films which come out of nowhere like Pitch Perfect. Leading to the question if this film is another one of those under the radar films worth watching?Characters & StorySomewhere in Chicago lives a well-adjusted family comprised of Jeff (Joe Swanberg), Kelly (Melanie Lynskey), and baby Jude (Jude Swanberg). Jeff is some sort of film maker, and Kelly is a homemaker who has a book published. But as she watches Jeff go outside the home and work, and she has but Jude and the house to tend to, there rises this almost envy of needing to get dressed and go somewhere on a daily basis. So when Jeff's little sister Jenny (Anna Kendrick) needs somewhere to stay after breaking up with her boyfriend, she seems like a god send. However, with Jenny not mature enough to really take on the load Kelly would like her to, it does bring to question what can she bring to the table? Something Jenny struggles with as she tries to find her place in what already seems to be a tight-knit little family.PraiseWhen it comes to this film, it is more certain scenes than the film as a whole which deserve praise. Such as a conversation Jenny, Kelly, and Carson (Lena Dunham) have in which Kelly speaks on her issues with being a stay at home mom and how complicated her feelings are about the job. And also there is another good scene which deals with Jenny and Carson helping Kelly write her next book.CriticismBut, as a whole, this movie keeps things relatively low key which makes the film really boring. For one, nobody is that interesting of a character. Albeit Jeff has this sort of Marshal, from How I Met Your Mother, type persona, but with no one getting any sort of back-story to liven them up, it becomes far too set in realism to be appealing. Then, on top of the characters being dull, the story itself doesn't invigorate things. For not only does nothing seriously happen, but even in the few prized moments which help push you toward finishing the movie there aren't any performances which truly liven up either the characters or the movie.And really, it is sad how only two scenes actually get your attention in a film a little over an hour. Making it seem so strange that the same person who made this film directed and wrote Drinking Buddies. For while Drinking Buddies was so good it should have been a pilot to a series, this feels like an indie short which somehow got the funding to be extended until a full-length movie. One which probably only die-hard fans of those involved will know about for this film highlights why Video on Demand exists. Because the names maybe recognizable, and usually trust worthy, but theaters know they won't make any real money off this.Overall: Skip ItWith this film, there aren't a lot of redeeming values to it. For while I liked the conversation Kelly has with Jenny and Carson about the issues she sometimes has with being a stay at home mother, as well as a conversation about writing erotica sans the words penis and pussy, the film as a whole just doesn't have a selling point besides Kendrick and Dunham's name. Hence why this is being labeled as a "Skip It" for it really does feel like Swanberg probably used bits of his life to create a movie which maybe could have worked as a short, but instead became a full length motion picture extended past the capabilities of its premise.