Critic Reviews

Some might dismiss the film as minor Wheatley — made in just a couple of weeks, on a budget likely smaller than even many of Wheatley’s inexpensive earlier pictures. But there’s a lot going on in it, from the genuinely profound portrait of how families can bring out the most toxic sides of their members when they’re together, to a light sprinkling of state-of-the-nation, post-Brexit commentary.

A slight but consistently entertaining, thoroughly funny slice of life, this is Ben Wheatley untethered, letting off steam with a workout. It is a welcome carnival of misanthropy.

Wheatley captures the volatility of emotions during the festive period, where every familial anxiety seems to come to a head, and does so with compassion and humour.

Quickly shot on single location, and brought to life collectively and collaboratively by an ensemble cast, Wheatley’s latest could have been a minor curiosity to keep the creative juices flowing in-between bigger projects, but there’s definitely more under the surface of this relentless barrage of recriminations and reckonings.

Happy New Year, Colin Burstead is an extended pilot, however, it’s a pleasingly cinematic one: unresolved and ragged with small open wounds, but self-contained in its fevered, filling-to-burst energy.

Ben Wheatley’s Happy New Year, Colin Burstead is a hothouse flower of misery, sprouting dozens of resentment-buds under artificially controlled conditions.

With such a large ensemble and diversity of personalities, Happy New Year fails to flesh them out.

Originally teased with the droll but less marketable title Colin You Anus, Wheatley’s sporadically amusing semi-farce has a lively rhythm and some fine performances, but the baggy screenplay never delivers the emotional grace notes and knockout revelations it promises.

Happy New Year… is vigorous and engaging as dark character comedy, but as drama it never quite builds or coheres convincingly.