Another Happy Day

A wedding at her parents’ Annapolis estate hurls high-strung Lynn into the fire of primal, Byzantine family dynamics. It’s the wedding of Lynn’s son, whom she was deprived of raising because of her acrimonious divorce, and a feud still rages between Lynn and her ex-husband’s hot-tempered wife. Meanwhile, the three children Lynn did raise display a panoply of disturbing behaviors like cutting and drug addiction, which Lynn’s mother and sisters alternately ridicule and blame her for. As Lynn attempts catharsis, her mother sweeps issues under the rug, but painful truths bubble and spurt. Clan members deploy ricocheting arrows to protect themselves—and wound others—as the fine lines between victims and perpetrators blur.

Many films have tread the terrain of upper-class family dysfunction, but few marshal as much sensitivity, rawness, and truth—and few performances penetrate as deeply as those of Ellen Barkin, Ellen Burstyn and Ezra Miller as they navigate the emotional minefields of unmet needs that span generations. –Sundance Film Festival