Kayleigh Donaldson
New Year films have far less of a cultural footprint than their Christmas counterparts. Perhaps it’s because people would rather leave the house on the final night of the year to party than stay in and watch a movie. New Year’s Eve carries with it a lot of the same pleasantly bland messages of hope and change that come with other December holidays, which would make it ideal for some chipper festive viewing. But, as any adult living in our current reality will tell you, the idea that going from December 31st to January 1st with a clean slate and potential for a new way of life is near-fantastical. That another year may bring with it nothing but the same old misery is a mundane yet terrifying prospect for many. It’s something that Ben Wheatley captures with caustic accuracy in his own film celebrating the occasion, Happy New Year, Colin Burstead.
English writer-editor-director Wheatley’s filmography is a striking mish-mash of thriller, satire, black comedy, and giant sharks. While he dabbles in unexpectedly mainstream fare such as Meg 2: The Trench and the misguided remake of Rebecca, he’s most at home with works that are unnerving, bleakly funny, and extremely British. He’s comfortable in playing around with genre conventions, from the psychological torment of the hitman thriller in Kill List to the Hammer-esque surreal intrusions of A Field in England. Horror typically shapes even his most un-horror films, which makes perfect sense for the claustrophobic awkwardness of Happy New Year, Colin Burstead.
The Colin of the title (Neil Maskell) has organized a New Year’s Eve party for his extended family, booking a posh country house in Dorset for the occasion. While he talks about the importance of family, it seems that nobody in the Burstead clan has any interest in keeping up appearances. His dad (Bill Patterson) keeps hitting him up for money. His mother (Doon Mackichan) is an attention seeker who semi-intentionally tries to injure herself upon arrival for sympathy (which Colin refuses to give). Uncle Bertie is a cross-dresser (Charles Dance, looking amazing), the caterer is Colin’s ex, all of his friends seem to be sleeping with one another, and an uninvited family friend, Sham (Asim Chaudhry), is hanging out on the sidelines as he works out his own problems. To make matters even worse, Colin’s sister Gini (Hayley Squires) has invited their estranged brother David (Sam Riley) to the party, alongside his glamorous wife Hannah (Alexandra Maria Lara, Riley’s real-life spouse). It’s a decision she regrets immediately.
It’s clear that while the Bursteads may love each other (emphasis on the “may”), they certainly don’t like one another. The tension is well-worn as petty squabbles and pointed conversations reek of familiarity, as though they’ve relitigated the same matters every time they’ve met. The camera moves through the party like another guest trying to find somewhere reasonably normal to hang out but never locating it (the handheld approach evokes parallels to another dinner party drama about familial strife, Thomas Vinterberg’s Festen). Everyone is swearing under their breath then loudly to their next target. For all the delusions of family bliss, it’s obvious that everyone likes hurting one another as much as possible. There’s a lot of crying, but maybe even more eye-rolling.
Wheatley’s screeenplay is very loosely inspired by Shakespeare’s Coriolanus (the working title was Colin, You Anus), but a closer comparison would be Mike Leigh’s early comedies, particularly Abigail’s Party. The agonizing awkwardness of Leigh’s portrayal of the new middle classes of the ‘70s has been swapped for the bitter tensions of post-Brexit Britain. It was one of the first British films to have characters discussing the European Union vote, alongside other dinner table conversations on money, work, and exes. The seasonal chats about deeply unfriendly topics that one has over the holidays are conveyed here with the simplicity and pain that many will find all too familiar. Much like Leigh’s Abigail, the price of keeping up appearances is often too high to pay. Even the backdrop of this beautiful but personality-free country house is a lie, a for-rent dollar store Downton owned by Lord Richard (Richard Glover), a nice but dim posh guy who’s as desperate for money as Colin’s parents.
Stripped to the bone of sentimentality, Happy New Year, Colin Burstead does have something of a heart, albeit a shriveled black one working overtime to stay alive. It might be Wheatley’s most normal film, but it’s also his most human, the one that will probably hit too close to home for many. It’s a thoroughly 21st-century slice of British malaise and bitterness, with Clint Mansell’s Medieval-esque score somehow only strengthening that. Perhaps it’s not the New Year’s movie most people would want when they’re hoping to make 2025 better than what preceded it, but it’s the most honest representation of how this whole charade actually works.
