Reckless immaturity in young people is generally diagnosed across generations, most often by parents worried about their supposedly underachieving kids. That makes the premise of Joe Swanberg’s Happy Christmas relatively refreshing, even as it covers well-known ground.
The film opens with Jeff (Swanberg) and Kelly (Melanie Lynskey) preparing for the arrival of Jeff’s sister, Jenny (Anna Kendrick), who is moving into their basement after breaking up with her boyfriend. Jeff and Jenny are of the same generation, only years apart in age, but clearly standing on separate sides of a line we might, for convenience’s sake, call “responsible adulthood.” On her first night living with Jeff and Kelly — who have a 2-year-old son named Jude (played by Swanberg’s son, also named Jude) — Jenny goes to a party with her friend Carson (Lena Dunham), blacks out from drinking too much, and requires Jeff to come drag her home in the middle of the night. The next day, a disappointed Kelly rejects Jeff’s argument that they may have been equally reckless at that age: “I had some semblance of propriety,” she scoffs.
What’s most interesting at first about Happy Christmas is that the differences between Jeff and Kelly on one hand and Jenny and Carson on the other are obviously recent and superficial. Jenny is not adamantly making a case for never growing up; life, rather, just seems to not have given her a reason to do so yet. Still, she is a perfect foil for Jeff and Kelly, who are both only beginning to get comfortable with their adult lives.
Across such a flimsy divide, it’s only a matter of time before shared sentiments emerge. The film’s best scene occurs shortly after Jenny has successfully babysat Jude for the first time. Kelly joins her and Carson for a beer and begins opening up about her dissatisfactions with her marriage, particularly the fact that she has had to give up her writing completely while Jeff continues to work.