The acutely realized "hysterical" extended family in director Sam Levinson's comedy/drama Another Happy Day is the kind we wish we had grown up in until an artistic rendering reveals a funhouse mirror where the likes of us are freaks, rejects and the butt of cruel jokes.
In the intricate cosmology of the film's big, boisterous wedding party, Lynn (Ellen Barkin, with empathy and pathos for a most uncomfortable soul) is coming to the wedding of son Dylan (saintly Michael Nardelli), the boy she left behind after the implosion of an abusive marriage to Dylan's dad, Paul (Thomas Hayden Church), who's returned somewhat sheepishly from the dark side. Lynn fled with her baby girl Alice, who has since grown into an intelligent but troubled young woman who cuts herself to release stress. On Lynn's agenda is to "protect" the now grownup Alice (Kate Bosworth) from potentially toxic contact with Paul. It galls Lynn that Paul's second marriage to Patty (wickedly alive Demi Moore) has provided a more stable home for Dylan than her own second marriage to the witty, detached Lee (Jeffrey DeMunn) has for their neurotic brood: Alice, camera-wielding Ben (Daniel Yelsky) and fiendishly insightful Elliot (Ezra Miller),
In the ring with Barkin's mood-swinging Mom and Ellen Burstyn's exasperated Grandma, New Jersey-born Ezra Miller turns his cynical 17-year-old prep school drop-out into a family rebel with a host of sad causes. A young actor who has already essayed queer roles (Every Day ) and who has a bathroom moment with Lynn's lipstick that ignites the family tom-toms in this one, Miller pivots effortlessly from compulsively rude court jester to one-boy Greek Chorus.
Apart from inheriting his dad Barry's talent for milking the last drop of humor and rueful insight from gifted ensembles, Sam Levinson has spun out one of those addictive party movies, like Jonathan Demme's 2008 Rachel Getting Married, with Miller occupying Anne Hathaway's role as the verbal bomb-tosser.
A dark comedy with dueling moms, ex-spouse reunions just shy of homicidal, and a troubled boy's attempt to avoid ending it all, Another Happy Day's emblematic moments include wary eye contact between Miller and George Kennedy as Elliot swipes Grandpa's painkillers, and an all-but-naked Miller's acing the scariest solo drug trip since Ryan Gosling's heroin-taking teacher in Half-Nelson .
Miller time
Ezra Miller �" pale-skinned, a single grey hair in a shaggy mane, sporting a black vest without a shirt �" is quick to correct his online bio, the onetime child opera singer confessing that he wasn't born in Hoboken, that he considers himself Jewish and spiritual, and that yes, he has been insanely lucky to grab roles in his teens of a caliber Paul Newman wouldn't land until his 30s. "It's like being a samurai amongst the best samurai in the world, and having to fight for your life."
David Lamble: You have a scene with Ellen Barkin where Elliot assaults Lynn after she's forbidden him to party down with his cousins.
Ezra Miller: Yeah, Barkin and I were slapping each other around all over the place.
You have this great monologue up against Ellen Burstyn where she snarls, "That's despicable."
They're like moon-born powerhouses falling on your head. I just watched the film again for the first time since Sundance. The things Sam did are so unbelievable and unexpected: he had so many beautiful tricks up his sleeve.
On the phone from New York, 26-year-old Sam Levinson notes the luck that a script that took three weeks to write and three years to sell attracted a talented acting corps: "I had no short film, no music video." For Levinson, the luck began on the fateful day he met his Elliot.
"I go to this restaurant, and I'm arguing with the manager, it takes like 30 minutes for me to get this table, and Ezra Miller walks in. He looks at the table, he looks outside at the patio area and says, 'Can we switch tables outside, cause I gotta smoke?'
"I thought, 'What a fucking prick!' My next thought was, 'He's perfect for this film!'"