Film Review: Happy New Year, Colin Burstead
Ben Wheatley’s latest comedy-drama boasts an extensive cast of fully fleshed out and detailed characters, each with their own independent storyline. But that is, unfortunately, about all it brings to the table.
Loosely based on the Shakespeare play Coriolanus, Happy New Year, Colin Burstead is the story of a fractured, selfish and dysfunctional British family coming together for a New Year’s celebration. The titular Colin (Neil Maskell) rents a mansion in the countryside for all of his family to stay for a night. His sister Gini (Hayley Squires), decides to surprise him, along with the rest of the family by inviting their estranged and apparently much-hated brother David (Sam Riley). As the family learns he will be coming, each member’s real feelings about the rest of the group are revealed and chaos ensues.
If you are hearing ‘dysfunctional family coming together’ and thinking Arrested Development, don’t get too excited. Wheatley has earned well-deserved praise in his direction and writing of the film. He’s created a cast of 18 complete characters; each with their own unique motivation and plan for the duration of the narrative.
The problem was that none of the characters’ stories was funny nor thrilling enough to make the film enjoyable or compelling to watch. They are ordinary people with ordinary problems. The fact that all their stories must be juggled together throughout the film makes for characters that don’t ultimately appear endearing or even likeable. We, as the audience, simply don’t get to know any of them well enough.
The ordinariness of the family’s problems: divorce, financial struggle, loneliness and uncertainty in life, means that the film’s dramatic climax is only relative to the rest of the subject matter, paling in comparison to the other character studies Wheatley has done in the thriller genre. The climax’s conclusive argument between brothers just does not seem that distinctive when the whole film has been a collage of arguments and disagreements between family members.
Being a big fan of Neil Maskell’s work in Utopia (2013-14), I was especially excited to see him on the big screen in a feature role. Sadly, though the title suggests he would be at the centre of the plot, his performance is effaced in the swathe of characters who have just as much, if not more screen time than Colin himself.
For an experienced director-writer like Wheatley, creating a crowd of characters with distinct personalities is still an impressive feat, well worthy of praise. Happy New Year, Colin Burstead’s mundane storyline coupled with a climax that fails to compel, however, let Wheatley’s most recent release fall to a non-essential 2020 viewing.
2/5 stars