AniInterview Sorry, this movie sucks

FirstWitch A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

Lollivan It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Portia Hilton Blistering performances.

loulybob This is a wonderfully powerful film that manages to seriously portray family drama in a believable way - so much so that I could match situations in the film to similar situations that have happened at my own family gatherings. It might not be everyone's cup of tea, hence the lower rating, but for me it was a great snapshot into a family's life and all the issues that get dragged up when so many people come together with a lot of emotional baggage.Others have mentioned the amazing acting performances and they really do bring the characters and thus the story to life. You can't help but feel for Ellen Barkin's Lynn as she's getting picked at from all sides, both from judgement and disdain from outside her immediate family and from within with Ezra Miller's Elliot acting up the entire time.However, this film tends highly towards the drama end of comedy-drama, so much so that it contains very little comedy at all in my opinion so I feel the genre categorising is a little disingenuous.

Nastasya T I just saw this on TV and wasn't wholeheartedly paying attention during the opening credits, but thought the graphics indicated I would be seeing a Woody Allen film. Nope. Sure it had the humor and depth from some of the earlier and lesser known Allen flicks (Interiors), but this film had the unconscious fluidity and stellar acting that Allen's films of late have been regrettably lacking.The writing and direction by Sam Levinson were nothing short of incredible; I totes want to be his new best friend. The casting was phenomenal, and were I in charge of doling out the awards Barkin would've certainly garnered a best actress, Miller best actor, Burstyn best supporting, and of course Best Original Screenplay to Levinson. The screenplay had more meat on it than the Atkin's diet. It never faltered in relating throughout. Levinson must be extremely self aware and a professional at observation to write such tangible characters in the configuration that he did. A weekend of American family dysfunction was under the microscope and Levinson didn't paint with broad strokes nor did he get lost in the details.I can't say enough positive things about the film and the only thing I would take a few digs at would be a couple of tunes in the soundtrack, but that is so minor compared to this work that will resonate with you if you have sort of been "there".

bigchucksr2 Frankly I liked the movie simply because it absolutely reinforces the truism that bad parents have bad offspring and three generations of children in this film are used to underscore what so many reviewers have missed in this film. Ellin Barkin is wonderful as the whiny, ineffective, self centered mother of three obviously damaged children--she plays her victim hood to the hilt throughout the movie and is NOT a sympathetic character in any respect but the director and author Sam Levinson does let her off the hook a little by showing us how badly Barkin's parent, specifically her mother, the icy grandma of monsters, played by Ellen Burstyn is the malevolent center of this very dysfunctional family. Burstyn revives her great Nurse Ratchet role in some respects in this movie and it is fun to watch. The children? Well, take a hint, they are the creations of the Barkin character while the mature, happy, and grounded child--the groom, was raised by the father--Thomas Haden's Paul. For those of you that can get past feeling sorry for Lynn and see what the author is offering you in the way of parenting advice, this is a great movie simply because it teaches that parents should be outward looking beings, not self absorbed twits.

shandragore Reading the professional critics' reviews of this powerful film is bewildering. Some of them perfectly reflect my sense of the deep truth it presents; others write it off as promising but fatally flawed.I want to focus on the painful (awful, even) sense of recognition I experienced as I watched. Early in my life I was profoundly and forever influenced by the writing of R. D. Laing, especially "The Politics of Experience." That title is much to the point here. I'm reminded of an old joke: Q. How many people does it take to have politics? A. Three, so that two of them can get together and talk about the other one. Laing portrays a world of interpersonal, ESPECIALLY familial, relationships in which violence is carried out, not in the realm of the physical, but in the realm of experience. He claims, and I say vividly demonstrates, that human beings routinely act with the purpose not merely of controlling others, but with the purpose of controlling how they experience themselves, their reality and the character of their oppressors. In Laing's terms, they are confronted with "forces of violence, masquerading as love."In these terms, "Another Happy Day" is dead on the mark: throughout the film Ellen Barkin's character is tormented by and struggles to overcome the mists and fog of the interlocking attitudes and prejudices that are the residual outcome of her family's progress through time. In terms of this struggle, she emerges as an existential heroine. More power to her; more power to all of us.