By Julie Griffin
The irony of the family of the feature film Another Happy Day, which while the feature family looks at themselves as together since it looks like everything is falling into place for them and going their way, they look out and view Lynn, the one fighting for her principals and her very life blood as somehow defunct. The family also erringly whispers, but mostly the women, behind the scenes now that all is going their way, about how Lynn just needs to let things go, perhaps even just be quiet and go away. Forever for them would be convenient. Lynn, the divorced, single woman attempts to survive dealing with taking a trip to a wedding of her older son, raised by the other family, who she barely knows. The family who considers themselves better than her, puts on airs and looks down their noses at her. Like a phylactery the world sees for them, what is not said with words to her face, the rest they wear written on foreheads easily read. Bringing up boys, a greater task than one even begins to know, Another Happy Day starts out with mom explaining to younger son Elliot who lives with her, and with a finesse' as good as humanly possible, the teenage boy who just said the blond mom is possibly hot or not hot argues with her so hard she almost drives the car off the road. She, kind enough to cover for his latest rehab encounter told classmates the time away merely amounted to a vacation behind the border line of Sweden.
The family she travels so far to visit, seems to want to require her to do things they would never ever submit to even if they were in her shoes. Therefore, Director Sam Levinson does more than portray a reality some women alone live daily. He brings to life the true emotional horror of one woman alone on this particular day, and attempts to show the beauty of her much braver and more heroic broken heart.
The truly defunct family who sees themselves as some kind of dynamic savior of the world, fails to see that truly no one wants what they've got to offer. After all, the closed minded situation, the very grounds of the home the family plans to hold the Maryland wedding on, even seems painfully haunted to Lynn, who keeps quiet about the resulting tragedy of the day. Even as each cruel event enfolds one to another, she fails even to respond to the highly dramatic mother who actually turns to accuse the lone woman of the one who suffered for a long time with great silence of all of the drama. It also almost seems as if the family members own some kind of greater determination to fail at showing the outsider any kind of love at all, let alone unconditional. But at least the wife of this movie, played by Demi Moore turns out to be a lot kinder, a lot more human and a lot more compassionate than the rest of the family members.
The only thing the grandchildren truly ascertain while alone, that grandma is a sociopath, while in-between whiffs of marijuana, Elliot refers to his addiction as normal teenage drugs. Sadly, the increased drug intake of the one brother filmed by the artistic passion of the younger brother, do not eclipse, nor explain the ensuing death pains of the grandfather. This is what happens, the grandmother at least explains. So, while Alice, the youngest sister, the cutter shows up for the rehearsal, the same grandmother who critisized her mother for not forcing the daughter to show up earlier, now leaves to stay with her husband at the hospitol. The same mother who along with all of the other family regular whispers and gossips about Lynne and her situation with other family members, also accuses Lynne who actually shows more self-control than anyone in the family of making family secrets public the most. It is just like the song, although the family fails to give Lynn credit for what she's done behind the scenes, still Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic. So, you see why Lynn avoids the rest of the family ~ It is because, the family consumed with the spirit of the wolf within a group of pecking order chickens wants to make Lynn pay for her ability to see the falacy of them by pecking her right off of the family farm. However, Lynn begs her baby daughter not to let them do that to her. She begs her not to let them define her or who she is. It is sad when you have to fight your own family just to survive. But sometimes getting away from them is just the ticket to true health. And if Lynn survives this day, she may find just that. Once she drives away and leaves forever. But not before things find a way to confront the rejecting family group.
Elliot though, (Ezra Miller), We Need To Talk About Kevin, depicts teenager boy characters who aren't just addicts well. He also does a good job at showing the self-centered and cruel depravity of this type of role. Elliot does not just enjoy his own self and his life. He knows how to do this at the expense of others, and even without the others knowing what he is up to. He seems to have this inate insanity to know just how to turn the focus of every social event upon himself and away from everyone else. The other irony exists in the bare fact that no one else in the family seems to even catch onto the fact or notice the dissention or the dysfunction and without any regard whatsoever the absolute disunity the boy distributes among the rest of the family. When the wives break out into a fight over more drama that Elliot secretly instituted at another time, no one also seems to notice that the husband secretly piloted by what negative power Elliot secretly piloted lies behind almost all of the remaining family trouble and dissention.
The rebellious boy a handful, the youngest daughter of Lynne who also now feels all alone, and forced to grow up without her oldest brother who raised by the other man and wife miles away seems to survive the taunting of the rest of the family by cutting. At the same time, the clever family whose clique groups outnumber the woman by three large groups to one, like rabid bullies from birth never seem to have once truly followed their own advice, the advice they attempt to shove down the throat of Lynn Hellman (Ellen Barkin). The oppression they serve up to her, which is actually more oppression on top of more oppression in the name of a false love disguised as the same arrogant stance they've practiced for years ~ You start to see that the woman falling apart, who actually did her best in her own way to even hold the other wife together in secret all of this time, is a cut above them all by far.
A dark and emotional social drama, the film seems more of a real life depiction. Demi Moore also portrays her given character very well and brings the wife of the ex-husband of Lynn (Barkin) to life. The 2011 black comedy drama genre, also stars along with a huge production crew, Ellen Barkin, Kate Bosworth, Ellen Burstyn,Thomas Haden Church, George Kennedy and Ezra Mille.
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