Happy New Year, Colin Burstead. (2018)

Colin hires a lavish country manor for his extended family to celebrate New Year. Unfortunately for Colin his position of power in the family is under serious threat from the arrival of his estranged brother David.

Director:

Ben Wheatley

Writer:

Ben Wheatley

Stars:

Sarah Baxendale, Sudha Bhuchar, Asim Chaudhry

3 nominations.

Cast

Credited cast:
Sarah Baxendale
Sudha Bhuchar
Asim Chaudhry	...	Sham
Joe Cole
Charles Dance	...	Bertie
Sura Dohnke
Vincent Ebrahim
Peter Ferdinando	...	Jimmy
Richard Glover
Alexandra Maria Lara
Doon Mackichan	...	Sandy
Neil Maskell	...	Colin
Sinead Matthews
Mark Monero	...	Warren
Bill Paterson

Storyline

Colin hires a lavish country manor for his extended family to celebrate New Year. Unfortunately for Colin his position of power in the family is under serious threat from the arrival of his estranged brother David.

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Genres:

Drama

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Details

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Release Date:

11 October 2018 (UK)

Also Known As:

Colin You Anus

Company Credits

Production Co:

Rook Films

Technical Specs

Runtime:

95 min

User Reviews

Should old acquaintance be forgot? Yes.

Fractious family gatherings, especially those marking a holiday or life event, are a staple of Anglophone popular culture. What Ben Wheatley seems to have done in this comedy-drama is to take this situation, although with a larger than average cast, and assume the script for a comedy-drama would just write itself. But a New Year's Eve drinks party just isn't a sufficiently high-concept idea to sustain a satisfactory full-length movie without character arcs, dramatic tension, or a plot, which are sadly deficient here.

It is filmed in an exaggerated docu-soap style, with shaky camerawork, zip pans and sudden focus changes, which many viewers will no doubt find jarring or pretentious. It wasn't this, however, that I had a problem with, so much as the structure. With such a bewildering number of characters, little attempt to provide any back-story for them before the party, and no real central protagonist, it is difficult to care much about any of the people in this movie, and the dramatic potential of the set-up is largely squandered. For me, the only truly dramatic or intense moment was Colin's rant at his serial-adulterer, family-abandoning brother David, who has arrived with his German girlfriend, about a third of the way in.

I did not feel that the dialogue was particularly witty or incisive either - the only line that stuck in my mind was when Colin was setting up the sound system and says "we have to have a disco, because if they don't dance, they fight."

The themes of indebtedness and financial embarrassment are touched on and there's even a very perfunctory conversation between two characters about Brexit and party politics, but it doesn't go anywhere with these ideas, and in the subsequent Q&A I found the director's claim that he was making, as he put it, "a film about the 'now'", to be somewhat hollow.

The country house is a nice location visually, it has a consistent visual style and a strong cast, but I don't think I can give it more than 5/10.