Rent Not Another Happy Ending (2013)

Not Another Happy Ending review by George Hooper - Cinema Paradiso

Scottish humour is a tough nut to crack. For one it isn’t the most accessible of comedy types. Secondly it doesn’t really suit the romantic genre as director John McKay fails to make his two leads comfortable in the world they inhabit. Sure one of them is insecure and should feel out of place but the other is so arrogant and aggrivating that its hard to imagine a world he wasn’t the centre of. The point being, none of Not Another Happy Ending feels right.

The film follows Jane Lockhart (Karen Gillan), an aspiring writer who finally gets published by obnoxious publisher Tom (Stanley Weber), a french man living in Scotland. When they finally finish their first book together Jane has trouble completing her second. Tom deduces that this is because she is finally happy and sets out to make her life miserable for her own sake even though it may ruin his relationship with her once and for all.

It may be Weber’s horrendous performance as Tom or the films total lack of relatable or even respectable characters but Not Another Happy Ending suffers from a complete lack of intelligence. Not only is Jane oblivious and the kind of kooky you only really find in movies but she also makes accomplished writers look bad with her completely blown out of proportion style choices, her self absorbed sense of worth and her poor choice in partners.

Gillan almost makes Jane charming but its an impossible uphill struggle that never quite feels worth it. The writing is witty in places with more than a few quotable one liners but without a story to bring it all together its just a hot mess. The love hate relationship isn’t a new concept, its been handled extremely well in films like As Good As It Gets but Not Another Happy Ending doesn’t quite understand the concept