Not Another Happy Ending

It's Karen Gillan Week here at Go-Go-Rama. I've been crushing on her for a while now, and since it's her birthday this week I'm catching up on some films I haven't seen yet. I start with 2013's Not Another Happy Ending, a kind of harmless, simple-minded movie that is only tolerable because of her performance.

For those who don't know her, Gillan is a long-legged ginger-haired Scottish lassie who has slowly worked her way up to stardom. She was one of many sidekicks to Doctor Who (a show I have not seen one episode of) and made some indies before striking it big in two franchises: as Nebula in both Guardians of the Galaxy films and the last two Avengers films (though she is unrecognizable under all that makeup and hardware) and in the Jumanji reboot (I'll be reviewing the first film, even as the second one is coming out soon). The first time I became aware of her was in the minor horror film, Oculus.

Not Another Happy Ending is about a novelist, Gillan. She has written a fictional account of her relationship with her father, which has earned several rejection letters. Finally, a small publisher, run by a Frenchman (Stanley Weber) agrees to publish it, albeit with many changes, including the title, which he springs on Gillan when the book has already been printed. They have come to loathe each other, and she has a second book she owes him before they will part. Of course, if you have ever seen a romantic comedy, you know they will end up together in the end.

The film, directed by John McKay, is light-hearted, even while tackling serious subjects (Gillan hadn't seen her father in several years until he re-emerges when she becomes successful). The depictions of writing and the publishing industry are simplistic (it's a rare thing that a novelist could get a book published without an agent, for example). But it's not aggressively bad.

Gillan's character is also simplistic, but she invests her with a lot of brio. Gillan was also a sketch comedian, and her comic timing is exemplary.

Also in the cast are Henry Ian Cusick, as the boyfriend who we know will be thrown over for Weber, and Amy Manson as Gillan's character in her second novel, who appears to her, urging her to complete it. This plot gimmick isn't very well thought out, and seems to exist because the writer needed something extra.

More Karen Gillan to come!