Hap­py New Year, Col­in Burstead

After two big-bud­get projects resplen­dent with Hol­ly­wood stars, Ben Wheat­ley has returned to his roots for his lat­est out­ing, Hap­py New Year, Col­in Burstead (pre­vi­ous­ly known as Col­in You Anus), cast­ing old friend Neil Maskell at the cen­tre of his fam­i­ly-focused dram­e­dy. The pair last worked togeth­er on the JG Bal­lard adap­ta­tion High-Rise, but die-hard Wheat­ley fans will pri­mar­i­ly recog­nise Maskell for his lead turn in 2011’s Kill List. His role in Col­in Burstead real­ly couldn’t be more dif­fer­ent, and indeed Wheatley’s film feels quite apart from any­thing else he’s done before.

Pre­dom­i­nant­ly set in a posh rent­ed house some­where in Dorset, the film focus­es on the Burstead fam­i­ly, par­tic­u­lar­ly the tit­u­lar Col­in, who’s hired the venue to see in the New Year. The ensem­ble cast includes some famil­iar faces, includ­ing Hay­ley Squires as Colin’s sis­ter Gini, and Charles Dance as eccen­tric Uncle Bertie. It quick­ly becomes appar­ent that every­one is dread­ing the arrival of estranged younger broth­er David (Sam Riley), who hasn’t seen his fam­i­ly for five years after cheat­ing on his wife Paula.

There’s more than a hint of Shake­spear­i­an dra­ma about the plot, ampli­fied by Clint Mansell’s qua­si-medieval score, and the sharp dia­logue deliv­ered by the cast (who also helped Wheat­ley with the script). With 18 promi­nent char­ac­ters, it does feel a lit­tle over­stuffed, but this claus­tro­pho­bia might be all too famil­iar to those who have nav­i­gat­ed an ardu­ous fam­i­ly gath­er­ing before.

Here’s the real kick­er: this Ben Wheat­ley joint is all very nor­mal. The argu­ments the Bursteads and their assem­bled guests have are cosy and triv­ial – the sort of things peo­ple tend to bick­er about dur­ing the hol­i­days: Brex­it, mon­ey, ex-part­ners, jobs. Gone are the twist­ed, grit­ty flour­ish­es and macabre themes – instead there’s a lot of cry­ing, in-fight­ing and a strange sense of melancholy.

Yet it’s a refresh­ing change of scenery in some ways, and Wheat­ley plays with our expec­ta­tion that some­thing might kick off at any moment. The doc­u­men­tary-style hand­held cam­er­a­work also adds to the feel­ing of being very much a part of the Burstead clan, warts and all. There are obvi­ous par­al­lels between this and Thomas Vinterberg’s par­ty-based 1998 dra­ma Fes­ten, but per­haps a more apt com­par­i­son is Andrew Haigh’s 45 Years, or even the peer­less Roy­al Fam­i­ly Christ­mas specials.

Wheat­ley cap­tures the volatil­i­ty of emo­tions dur­ing the fes­tive peri­od, where every famil­ial anx­i­ety seems to come to a head, and does so with com­pas­sion and humour. The end cred­its sequence in par­tic­u­lar feels like some­thing quite spe­cial, but those more inclined towards Wheatley’s more auda­cious work might strug­gle to con­nect with this change of tone and pace. For skep­tics, maybe this is the Wheat­ley film that will change your mind.