REVIEW: Happy Anniversary

Milestones in a relationship can be a lot of fun.  They are times to realize that you have lasted the test of time (provided that the milestones are more significant than the one week anniversary of the first date) and act as a celebration.  They may not mean much for everyone.  The only anniversary that my wife and I celebrate is that of our wedding, and a lot of times there really isn't anything special that happens.  In the movie Happy Anniversary the characters celebrate the three year marker of their first date.  Unfortunately for them, and I would suggest us as well, it isn't the smoothest of days.

Directed by Jared Stern, and written by him as well, this movie spends a day with an overly quirky and witty couple as they decide whether or not the relationship is over.  Stern has penned such movies disliked by me like The Internship and The Watch.  Don't count him out, though.  He also worked on the critically acclaimed LEGO Batman Movie.  In this movie, though, the main thing that stands out is the fact that Stern is unable to create realistic, consistent, and relatable characters.

In a movie when we are watching a relationship fall apart there must be something in there that causes us to root for them and want to see them together (Blue Valentine, anyone?  Perhaps that's not the best example...).  Sadly, Stern has absolutely no concept of how to make us desire to see this couple remain together.  The major problem?  His creation of Sam, played by Ben Schwartz.  Sam is the boyfriend, and ultimately only six minutes of the movie pass before we are shown that he is a miserable excuse of a boyfriend.  When his girlfriend Mollie, Noel Wells, brings up that she is not happy and tries to discuss her feelings Sam's response is, and I quote, "your feelings are f**king bulls*t."  That's verbatim what he says when his partner tries to be honest about what she is feeling.  He immediately indicates that what she is experiencing is not worth anything.

Sam's likability, or lack thereof, doesn't' end there.  When they are walking along Noel says that he won't admit when she's right.  He responds with, and I quote again, "stop being such a b*tch."  What a classy guy that we have placed in front of us.  Another wonderful thing that he says to her is, and yes this is a quote from the movie about cheering for a couple, "the only time I'll ever be happy again is when you're f**king dead."  Stern is perhaps trying to show that Sam is a flawed character, and there is no problem with creating flawed characters.  However, there is a point where the flaws are such that we know full well that Mollie deserves better and that Sam is a rotten person who should be alone for the rest of his life.

That's not the end of the writing issues.  Movies such as this one need to focus on the personality traits of the characters to show how their differences are causing rifts that they need to overcome.  Stern shows in this movie that he does not actually know the characters he has created.  At the beginning we are shown that Mollie is optimistic.  She believes in ghosts essentially because people are too good to completely disappear with death.  Forty minutes later that optimism no longer fills the narrative and instantly she is portrayed as incredibly pessimistic.  Sam says that not only does Mollie see the glass as half full, but she views the glass as full of poison.  And then, literally the final sentence of the movie, Mollie is once again the optimist and is telling Sam to stop being such a pessimist.  Throughout the movie we have thrown at us character traits that have never been shown in the film prior and are not consistent with what we have seen of the characters prior.  Suddenly an issue with Sam is that he cannot make up his mind on anything, which is only shown in flashbacks and is never present at any other point in the story.

This is supposed to be a comedy, but the characters here are such plot devices that it is hard to crack a smile at anything that happens.  While Stern would have us believe that we are watching a rom-com, what we actually get is evidence of a person without any actual clue as to what makes couples work, from their imperfections to what brings about charm.  Sam is pretty much irredeemable.  Mollie deserves better, and Sam deserves to eat cold beans each night while watching Merry Melodies on a cathode ray tube television on UHF.  Toss him away, we don't need him.  All of that being said, Schwartz and Wells act their parts well.  They can't help the fact that there is nothing realistic about what is happening.

Rating - 1 out of 4 stars