BFI LFF 2018: HAPPY NEW YEAR, COLIN BURSTEAD - Dir. Ben Wheatley

Now almost a decade into his feature filmmaking career, perennial London Film Festival favourite Ben Wheatley returns with Happy New Year, Colin Burstead: perhaps his warmest film to date and a perfect sweary antidote to the usual festive offerings.

Colin Burstead (an excellent Neil Maskell) has hired a grand Dorset castle to bring his family together for a New Year's party. Like every family, they don't always get along but the Burstead are perhaps more resentful than most. So far so Agatha Christie but there's no chance of the butler being murdered here as the Burstead family are far too embittered to actually murder anyone; it’s as if their resentment for each other would only be exceeded by the resentment towards someone who no longer had to endure the curt and strained conversations.

In fact, it’s a film devoid of over elaborate comedic set-ups, opting instead for inconsequential digressions and half conversations between the film’s 18 characters (or 19 if you count the ever contented baby Maskell). The scenes are partly improvised, which helps them to feel less obviously written. They perfectly capture that awkwardness of the small talk between people who are almost obliged to try and get along but don't know really know enough about each other.

Wheatley wrote the film as an opportunity to work with Neil Maskell again and it’s a role that harnesses Maskell’s dry comic delivery and his raging intensity. Pitched somewhere between Michael Bluth and Basil Fawlty, we first see Colin Burstead taking in the early morning landscapes whilst savouring the calm before the storm. Even before reaching the castle, his family have complained about the 4 hour drive and the impending arrival of estranged brother David (Sam Riley) has everyone on edge. When Colin’s mother trips on a step upon entering the house, Colin’s exasperation is understandable. Colin is meant to be the sane one amongst his family who seem wholly intent on testing his patience to its breaking point.

However as we listen in on the increasingly alcohol fuelled small talk, the personalities of these other characters are developed and we realise there's more to these characters. Wheatley cuts between two or three conversations at a time but story threads emerge and the all too recent family history becomes ever clearer. A few mentions of Brexit place the film firmly in the here and now, and there’s certainly more in the film's sub-text too.

Additional allusions to power struggles and allegiances perhaps explain the origins of the film's cruder working title: ‘Colin You Anus’. Shakespearean echoes can also be heard in Clint Mansell's score, used sparsely but purposefully amidst the rumbling bass of the overpowered family disco. Mansell helps to bring the film to a close with a gentle piano piece that plays over the film’s unexpectedly optimistic end credits. It’s a perfect end to a film that’s bristling with anger but with a great deal of warmth too; Happy New Year, Colin Burstead will go down a treat when the film airs on the BBC at the end of the year. For his seventh feature, Wheatley’s gone a bit soft on us all but in his own very sweary way.

HAPPY NEW YEAR, COLIN BURSTEAD screens at the 62nd BFI London Film Festival.

Click HERE for screening and ticket details.