Movie Review: Happiest Season (2020)

Genre: Romantic Comedy  

Director: Clea DuVall  

Starring: Kristen Stewart, Mackenzie Davis, Alison Brie, Aubrey Plaza, Mary Steenburgen, Victor Garber, Daniel Levy  

Running Time: 102 minutes  

Synopsis: Abby (Kristen Stewart) is planning to propose marriage to her girlfriend Harper (Mackenzie Davis), and agrees to spend Christmas at the home of Harper's wealthy parents. On the way, Harper reveals that she has not yet told her parents (Victor Garber and Mary Steenburgen) that she's gay. Abby plays along, pretending to be Harper's roommate, and meets Harper's sisters (Alison Brie and Mary Holland), a secret lover from high school days (Aubrey Plaza), and a former boyfriend. With Harper acting straight, Abby feels neglected, and her gay friend John (Daniel Levy) arrives to help.

What Works Well: The stellar cast extracts best value out of the limited material. The individual and sometimes difficult coming out journey is handled with notable sensitivity, here placed in the context of offspring struggling to meet lifelong parental expectations and the imperative to project a "perfect" family image (Harper's father wants to run for Mayor). 

What Does Not Work As Well: The entire premise is built on the rickety foundation of Harper inviting her partner to meet her parents, but before telling them she's gay. The contrivances get worse when Harper emotionally abandons Abby and starts flirting with her ex-boyfriend. After a significant investment in multiple difficult family dynamics (Harper's two sisters have serious issues of their own), the resolutions quick snap back to convenient outcomes.

Key Quote:

John (to Abby): You deserve to be with someone who shouts their love for you from the rooftops!

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Movie Review: Speak No Evil (2024)

Genre: Suspense Horror  

Director: James Watkins  
Starring: James McAvoy, Mackenzie Davis, Scoot McNairy  
Running Time: 110 minutes  

Synopsis: While in Italy on vacation, American couple Louise and Ben (Mackenzie Davis and Scoot McNairy) and their daughter Agnes befriend British couple Paddy and Ciara (James McAvoy and Aisling Franciosi) and their son Ant, who is unable to speak due to a tongue condition. Louise and Ben subsequently accept an invite to spend a weekend at Paddy's home in rural Devon. Louise finds Paddy's behaviour increasingly unsettling, but her concerns are dismissed by Ben, deepening a pre-existing rift between the couple. But when Louise senses Agnes may be in danger, her unease escalates to horror.

What Works Well: This remake of a Danish-Dutch film expertly builds tension through a patient but still ominous opening hour. Director James Watkins leverages an excellent James McAvoy performance to construct a milieu dripping with social awkwardness, where every action may have multiple explanations from friendly to hostile. Subtle gestures, throwaway comments, and quirky behaviours may just be the habits of exciting new friends raising a child with disabilities, or clues about dangerous strangers. The strained bond between Louise and Ben, and the insecurities harboured by their daughter Agnes, add to the spiderweb of emotional fractures. The time for panic, once it arrives, is well-earned.

What Does Not Work As Well: As is common for the genre, some contrived reasons are combined with suspect decision making to swerve past opportunities to escape the horror.

Key Quote:

Paddy: I know we can both be...

Ciara: ...a bit much.



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The Movies Of Mackenzie Davis

All movies starring Mackenzie Davis and reviewed on the Ace Black Movie Blog are reviewed below:

The F Word (2013)

That Awkward Moment (2014)

The Martian (2015)

Blade Runner 2049 (2017)

Tully (2018)

Happiest Season (2020)

Speak No Evil (2024)

All Ace Black Movie Blog reviews are here.
The Movie Star Index is here.

Movie Review: That Awkward Moment (2014)

A raunchy romantic comedy, That Awkward Moment follows three guys on the relationship rollercoaster. Despite a bright cast, the film sputters.

In New York City, Mike (Michael B. Jordan), Daniel (Miles Teller) and Jason (Zac Efron) are twentysomething best buddies. Daniel and Jason are book cover artists and enjoy commitment-free relationships with women, while Mike is a doctor who seemingly has it all. But his marriage to Vera (Jessica Lucas) suddenly disintegrates when she confesses to an affair and demands a divorce. 

In solidarity Daniel and Jason commit to refraining from entering any serious relationships but both are soon falling in love. Jason meets author Ellie (Imogen Poots) and after a rocky start they evolve into a couple, while Daniel develops feelings for Chelsea (Mackenzie Davis) who is supposed to be just a friend with benefits. Meanwhile Mike is desperately trying to repair his marriage to Vera.

Featuring a talent-rich cast, That Awkward Moment fails to provide material to match. Director Tom Gormican also wrote the script, and he is firmly stuck in bathroom-level humour where body parts and body functions have to be part of every joke. Some of the humour works and a few laughs are generated, but the overdose of repetitive profanity, bro-level ribbing, insults hurled at the end of every sentence and pure immature behaviour is quickly more tiresome than funny.

The title refers to the pivot point in a potential relationship when a woman wants to know what the future holds, a moment of doom for commitment phobes like Jason and Daniel. But here all the romance elements are contrived, and it remains a mystery why women such as Ellie and Chelsea would ever fall for a couple of douchebags like Jason and Daniel, who luxuriate in their aversion to genuine caring.

The sex scenes are plentiful but short and played for giggles, and at least That Awkward Moment aims for equal representation of coupling as a tool useful for both genders to spice up the single life.

The film clocks in at 94 minutes but feels longer. All the expected relationship ups and downs due to miscommunication and mismatched expectations are triplicated, but three times tedious is still tedious.

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Movie Review: Tully (2018)

A social drama with moments of humour, Tully explores the darker and often unspoken perils of motherhood.

Full-time mom Marlo (Charlize Theron) is in her mid-40s and married to Drew (Ron Livingston). They already have two kids, including the "quirky" (social code for difficult) Jonah, and now the perpetually exhausted Marlo is about to give birth to a third child thanks to an unplanned pregnancy. Baby Mia is born, and with Drew frequently absent and otherwise uninterested in mundane baby tasks, Marlo is consumed by round-the-clock child care duties.

Near the point of emotional and physical collapse she heeds the advice of her brother Craig (Mark Duplass) and hires a night nanny. The energetic, bubbly, nocturnal and perpetually positive Tully (Mackenzie Davis) is surprisingly young, but immediately relieves Marlo of looking after Mia during the night. And Tully soon provides extra help, cleaning the house, preparing cupcakes and reviving Marlo's moribond sex life. A rejuvenated Marlo starts to feel much better about herself, and forms an unexpected bond with Tully.

Tully bravely ventures where few parenting stories dare to go. Marlo does enjoy fleeting moments of bonding with newborn Mia, but writer Diablo Cody is more interested in confronting the stress induced by sleepless nights, constant worry, and the elimination of any personal time or sense of self-identity. Already struggling with Jonah's tantrums and misbehaviour at school, Marlo is at a low ebb before Mia arrives, and the plunge back into the blurry cycle of diaper changes, nursing and burping threatens to push her over the edge.

Director Jason Reitman surrounds Marlo with the normalcy of a slightly befuddled and generally hands-off husband, a professional and caring school principal, and a wealthy brother with the seemingly perfectly balanced life complete with a confident wife and well-adjusted kids. But from Marlo's increasingly warped perspective they are all any combination of clueless, judgmental and irritating, their every comment landing on the wrong side of her battered self-esteem.

Marlo finally succumbs to the idea of seeking help, and into her soiled world steps Tully, a remarkable energy source radiating youthful confidence, empathy, and helpfulness. And Tully makes it clear she not only wants to care for Mia, her real objective is to help recalibrate Marlo's whole life. Pressure starts to fall off Marlo's shoulder, the fog of fatigue parts and she can see her way towards joy.

In the film's final third Cody and Reitman playfully tease out the emerging and unusual relationship between mother and nanny, Tully excelling as commentary on the primal sacrifices and dangerous sojourns past mental and physical limits required to provide selfless care.

Charlize Theron commands attention as she soaks the screen with exasperated exhaustion and overflowing levels of frustration at a society that simply expects moms to cope with whatever the role brings. Mackenzie Davis provides a perfect foil, bringing Tully to life as a woman who thrives as a caregiver but has not yet experienced full adulthood responsibilities. The two women make for a remarkable duo, in a vivid personification of the supernatural motherhood journey.

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