Free Fire (2016), Ben Wheatley’s previous film, is set during an arms deal that goes south quickly and nastily, devolving into a comic close-quarters shoot-out. Well, his latest, Happy New Year, Colin Burstead changes location and weaponry, the guns being replaced by passive aggression, outbursts of invective, and two-faced familial bitchiness during a new year’s eve party.

Colin (Neil Maskell) has booked a lavish accommodation in which to host this party, and as the family members arrive — comprising a who’s who of British cinema and television — situations, dislikes, intrigues, and partially-shared secrets bubble up between them as more booze goes down. There’s an interesting ambiguity in the film about the different levels of knowledge each of the characters possess about the other people in the room; sometimes it’s parcelled out definitively, at other junctures, left uncommented upon — suffice it to say, tempers rise and the incidents inspired reverberate across the separate units of the family.

This is helped along by a delicious parallel-editing scheme, which keeps two or three groups of fickle, untrusting family members in on the latest story developments at the same time, and a fondness for cutting away from a moment quickly just as the punchline is sounded. This is itself accentuated by Laurie Rose’s handheld cinematography, looking as if it’s catching the best of the sarcastic retorts and spiteful asides on the fly.

And that pensive approach to filming is a clever way into this script, which is exemplary, if at times overburdening. One argument in particular plays out in an expository manner, necessary for both the viewer and the party-attendee who doesn’t know the intricacies of the conflict being aired-out, but as it reads, it’s a bit laborious to listen to. That said, the captiousness of these characters is rendered in wonderful strokes, and no script which contains a mention of “The Tony Benn Brexit” can be anything less than sterling.

That goes for the ensemble too, with the stand-outs being Maskell, who’s a furnace of frustration the whole time, just about managing; Hayley Squires, as Gini, Colin’s sister, who delivers those line-readings with fabulous panache, while also becoming, in a late scene, and only disclosed in a pair of brief shots, something like the face of authentic feeling in the group; and then there’s Sam Riley, as the contentious brother David: small gestures, huge bastard. In a film inundated with thresholds — physical, emotional, social — he manages to disregard almost all of them.

Also of note: the end credits are a delight, and work on the film’s line about the family — “if they don’t dance, they fight.” After a zippy 90-minutes of rebarbative spats, squirrelly point-scoring pettiness and many too many drinks, how nice it is to see them all (the director and crew too) dance around like prats, exactly the way the best parties end.

Director: Ben Wheatley
Writer: Ben Wheatley
Stars: Neil Maskell, Sura Dohnke, Marvin Maskell
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