We’ve all had family gatherings that have gone slightly awry. Whether it’s a punch-up between cousins who are after the same girl or Aunty Maud who says too much after too many sherries. They all pale into insignificance compared to the Shabbat dinner put on by the Israeli family in Michael Mayer’s Happy Times.
The party in question is being held in the luxurious LA mansion of Sigal (Liraz Chamami) and Yosi (Ido Mor). They’ve invited an assortment of friends and relatives, but the first to cause some eyebrow raising is wannabe actor Michael (Michael Aloni) and his girlfriend Aliyah (Stéfi Celma), who happenes to be black. As the evening progresses and too much alcohol is consumed, things get heated, with prejudice, passion, and egos leading to an outburst of violence that puts the night on a different trajectory.
Directed and co-written (with Guy Ayal) by Michael Mayer, Happy Times takes a while to get into its mojo. We are given enough space to get to know the lay of the land when it comes to the relationships between the characters. When everything explodes into an unpredictable bloodbath, Mayer’s pacing pays off as the building tension within the group reaches boiling point. The single location is used perfectly, as scenes take place in almost every room of the sprawling house. Each character is fleshed out wonderfully by the actors in the first half of the movie so that when things go west, and we get to see another side to them, it’s both shocking and triumphant.
The humour is as dark as it comes throughout (this certainly isn’t Friday Night Dinner), and gets even darker in the second half of the film. This comedic edge is what keeps things entertaining rather than disturbing, particularly when it comes to the appearance of the Rabbi. Mayer and Ayal’s script weighs into cultural stereotypes and double standards wonderfully – the film plays out in a mix of Hebrew and English and could easily have worked merely as a family-based comedy-drama. The fact things take the sinister, gory turn is just the perfect coffee and dessert the evening needed.
Release Date: February 9th (US)
